From The Cold
by Dr. Blind
Summary: Magnus wakes up in a stranger's apartment. As a prostitute who caters to vampires, he's used to being battered come sun up. But this time there's a boy at his bedside wanting to know exactly what he never asks: what happened the night before?
1. Eggs

_The club was a nightmare. _

_Music boxed me in. The sweating masses didn't give a fuck about the blood running down my face or the cum drying to the collar of my shirt. They didn't care that I was crying or that I was drunk. The strobe lights were making me nauseous. I closed my eyes and fought through the throngs of people in complete darkness, not knowing whether or not each step was actually taking me away from him. _

_My hands hit a wall and I opened my eyes, stumbling with my shoulder leaning against the rough concrete until I found a door. It was heavy, metal, and closed - obviously not one used for regular admittance. I gave it a good shove and stumbled out onto the cold New York street. My eyes opened and the sky and the ground were bending towards each other. _

_What the fuck did he put in my drink?_

_"Hey, are you all right?"_

_I opened my mouth to ask for help and threw up all over myself. My hands cut themselves open on the rough pavement and my head gave one last terrible, dizzy spin before I was finally out like a light._

**From The Cold**

**xxx**

**Eggs  
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I wake up in some random guys bedroom, which is normal enough for me. My specialty is to take the rough ones. Sometimes they don't know where to draw the line. Sometimes I end up getting knocked out. But something is different this time. The bed beside me is empty, but the person who it belongs to is in the room. He's sitting in a chair next to me, his feet propped up on his night stand, fast asleep. And man, is he gorgeous. Sure, his hair sucks and his clothes are ugly, but his face is something out of a magazine. He looks like an angel. I bet his eyes are blue.

Speak of the devil, the random guy in the chair shifts and opens his eyes. They're more than blue. They're the sky. They're heaven. They are looking at me.

We're caught in a staring contest, which I finally break by saying, "Who are you?"

He blinks a couple of times. "I'm Alec," he says. "You passed out in an alley behind the Pandemonium. I didn't want to leave you there."

"Oh." Most people would have just left me, bleeding and hurt. Most people would have seen the inverted cross tattooed to my throat and backed off. They would have known I belong to one of the pimps. "You didn't have to do that."

"Who beat you up?" he asks.

I shake my head and sit up. His room is cluttered with books, some of them really old. There's a painting on the wall. I can only see the edge of the frame because his closet door is covering it. My shirt feels weird. I look down and realize for the first time in a long time it's not skin tight. It's his. "I have to go. My... I..." My hand goes to the mark on my neck and I meet his eyes pointedly.

He doesn't seem to get it.

"Don't you at least want some breakfast?" he asks.

I start to say no, but my stomach grumbles and I know that my knees are going to give out soon. I can't remember the last time I ate. Vampire blood does that to you. "I would like that," I say.

He smiles and his whole face lights up. He has pale lips and super white teeth. I can't look at teeth. They make me feel sick. Beautiful men make my head hurt and beds make me want to lay down and die. But Alec has something that keeps me from bolting - his blue eyes look so kind with the light hitting them. He stands up and stretches. He's not as tall as I am, but he's pretty tall. He waits for me to get up at the door. I crawl out from under his big warm quilt and realize I'm in my boxers.

"Your clothes are in the wash," he says. "They had, uh... puke on them."

We both go a bit red and leave it at that.

Alec's apartment is huge and cluttered. He's like one of those hoarders. Every surface but the floor is covered with books and newspapers and binders. The walls are covered in framed maps of strange land masses. There are antique wall sconces, damask wallpaper and marble floors. No TV, but an old wood and brass radio is playing a local station. A huge bank of windows shows we're insanely close to the East River - we're in Manhattan. He leads me into his kitchen, which is all stainless and brand new. There's a giant window in here too. He hooks his foot around a stool and pulls it out for me and keeps on to the fridge, like being a graceful motherfucker is his profession.

I expect him to pull out a box of cereal. Instead, he yanks open the fridge and pulls out a carton of eggs. "You don't have to - "

"The only people who visit me never stick around for my cooking. You're going to eat an omelet and be happy about it." He gives me an adorable smile and I give him a tired one in return.

"I just feel like I'm putting you through a lot of trouble..." I look down at my hands. There's dried blood on my knuckles. "I... don't want you to get hurt for - for being nice to a Blood Whore."

Alec gives me a flippant wave, which is the last thing I expect. "Don't worry about me."

Alec is either two things:wonderfully brave or terribly stupid. I decide that I don't care. It's his life. He can make his own decisions. I just want my eggs. "Thank you. For everything."

He shrugs. "No problem. So about last night... Who beat you up?"

He's being so nice to me, and he seems so trustworthy, so I just tell him the truth. "I don't know. It was probably a client. I can't remember."

"Why can't you remember?" His face is concerned.

I frown. "I was pretty drunk... Must have blacked out."

Butter sizzles in the pan. He has one of those flat surface stoves built into the island I'm sitting at. Alec has a good job, it seems. "When vampires bite, a lot of people think they're just taking blood," he says. My stomach turns when I think about blood. "It's not true though. They take this stuff called Solus. It's basically what you would call a soul. That's how they make people into zombies. They drain all of the Solus and just leave a shell. So when you say 'I was drunk last night and blacked out', judging by the bite marks on your neck, what you really mean is 'The vampire I was working for took too much of my soul and my mind shut down.'"

I swallow thickly, bile threatening to run up my throat, and say nothing.

Alec cracks a couple of eggs into the pan and whisks them before they cook. His wrist is fluid, graceful - almost eerily so. I'm starting to wonder not who he is, but _what_ he is. He turns his back on me and I quickly grab a knife out of the holder. He swirls back, cheese and a grater in his hands. The smile from before is gone. "The problem is that when you get to the point of lost consciousness because of vampire consumption, your body should be long gone. Even a completely healthy human couldn't possibly fight off a vampire, and no offense, but you're anything but healthy."

He sets down the grater and the cheese and reaches out a hand.

"May I?"

My left hand clutching the knife, I give him my right. His hands are warm and soft. He runs his thumb over the scabs on my knuckles and frowns. "It might not have been a vampire..."

"It was definitely a vampire."

"How do you know all of this?"

Two things happen at once. He grabs my left upper arm tugs it upwards. The knife flies out of my hand and he catches it. With his other arm, he grabs the pan and gives it a sharp jerk, flipping the omelet so that it folds in half. The whole time there's a little smile on his face.

Alec takes the knife, cuts the omelet in half, and dumps it onto two plates sitting in the doorless cupboards above us. My plate slides across the island with a cool scraping sound and rests in between my elbows. My heart is pounding and my eyes are wide. Alec simply hands me a fork and then starts picking at his own breakfast. "I sort of burnt it..."

"I - "

" - tried to kill me with a bread knife. I know. It's okay. Not the first time."

I calm my breathing and ask, "Who are you?"

Alec wraps a string of cheese around his tongue like a five year old, and I have to admit it's adorable. "Someone who wants to know who you are."

"I'm Magnus Bane," I say automatically. It's like my mind goes on autopilot. "I'm a Sagittarius."

Alec laughs. It's an amazing sound. "Alexander Lightwood. Libra. Now finish your omelet. Your clothes should be dry soon."


	2. Home

**Home**

Alec lets me go.

He walks me down to the lobby and then hails a cab. "I don't have any money," I say. But he's already thought of that, too. There's a roll of tens in my front pocket. I pull them out and try to give them back, but he shuts the door and raps on the hood, like he's in an old movie.

I watch him shrink as we rush down the street and then out into traffic. Alec Lightwood on the Upper East Side. I wish I could go back to his apartment some day. Sleep in his bed and eat his omelets. But I know that I can't. He's already put himself in enough danger, and to be completely honest he sort of freaks me out. No one is that nice without wanting something. I've already learned that lesson the hard way.

XXX

I'm too scared to go back to Raphael because I still have no clue how my knuckles got all bruised, so I tell the cabbie to drop me off at the abandoned warehouse I've been living in for the past couple of months. Where I sleep used to be an office or something, but to get to it you have to go through the biggest, emptiest warehouse ever built. The hard soles of my shoes clack loudly and echo back to me. I can't look up or all I'll start imagining the towering machinery this place was built for and I'll feel small again. My muscles hurt as I climb up the rusty steel stairs. Sunlight streams in through the filthy, cracked windows. I shove open the door of my 'house' and shuck off my shoes. It's not dirty or anything. For a junkie, I keep things pretty clean. I have a mattress and a desk with a TV on it. Posters. CD's. Makeup. My whole life, really. I don't get to spend a lot of time just hanging around, watching TV and eating chips. I can't really focus long enough to read or watch anything. My eyes start blurring. My teeth start chattering. My veins start calling for someone else's blood.

I lie down on my bed and stare up at the exposed pipes above me. Finally, I feel at home. My bones settle, and for a moment it hurts. My bones always seem to hurt. And then nothing.

Stillness.

Something is wrong. I shouldn't be still. I should be freaking the fuck out, wondering when and where and how I can get more blood. My ears should be buzzing and my muscles should be shaking. They're not. I'm calm. I'm stable.

What day is it?

With no phone, I turn on my TV. It picks up a flickering signal. A local station. The news is on. And in the corner, the date. I haven't been home for three days.

A million questions at once. Where have I been for three days? Why can't I remember? How the hell did I dry out so fast? Who was I working for last night and how the fuck did I get away from them?

And the biggest question: How do I get high again?

If I'm in trouble with Raphael, how am I going to get vamp blood? It sickens me, but now that I'm confused and scared, I want nothing more than to be fucked out of my mind.

I sit up and whip off my shirt, suddenly needing to check on something. There should be a big welt on my right hip from getting whipped by some creep vamp in a leather mask. Why can't I feel it? When I look, I realize why. It's gone. Completely 100% vanished. There are bruises everywhere, but they're fresh, like the newly cleaned scrapes on my knuckles.

I need to go back.

Heart pounding, I rocket onto my feet towards my shoes. I need to get out before something bad comes for me, and I know something will. That's how it works in these situations. You lose track and suddenly the whole world is out to fucking kill you. As I force my foot into my ankle boots, the hair on the back of my neck stands up. Something is immediately wrong in the room. I can feel Raphael's worker in my pulse. My blood can feel him near me. It wants to be taken from me. But that's not what he's here for.

I spin around and the vampire grabs onto my shirt. He hauls me off of the ground and throws me so hard that I crash through the office door. I land in a mess of splintered, rotting wood. My breath is ragged. I can't get enough air in. It feels like my lungs have shrunken. The vampire is tall, blonde - almost transparent. He has that oily look that vampires get when they walk into the sun, like their skin is made of paper and smeared with Vaseline. Most vamps can't go in the sun, but sometimes if they get enough blood into them, they can get out into the light just long enough to get the job done. So that's it. This is a hit. Panicking, I grab onto the railing and get to my feet. The plan is to take the stairs two at a time, but the vamp crashes into me and we both go flying over the side of the shaky metal landing.

He's going to survive the drop.

I'm not.

I close my eyes and for a moment I'm flying. The wind in my hair isn't because I'm falling, but because I'm rising. There are angels all around me, with fluffy white wings and harps. My mother is whispering to me. "You're going to be a great man, Magnus. A great, great man." But I'm not going to get the chance. I'm going to die. I'm going to break every bone in my body. It's over before it started - I'm only nineteen.

Liquid heat coats my body and I'm certain I've died. The falling has stopped. Though I can't see it, I know an angel is holding me. Their arms are warm and their skin is soft. So this is death, huh? Not bad.

"Jesus, could you have made that any messier?"

Jesus is here?

Wait, I know that voice. I open my eyes and I'm face to face with Alec Lightwood. He's spattered with thick black innards, looking seriously unimpressed. He's also not holding me. I look up at the person who's arms I'm in. It's a boy, much younger, with golden hair and eyes. He would look like one of the angels from my imagination if it wasn't for the expression - like he owns the world. The way he stares at me, I know I'm nothing. Inconsequential. I think he's about to drop me on my ass when I lift my hands and see that my arms are coated in black vampire blood.

Someone normal would scream. I wish I could do that. I wish I could do anything but flutter my eyes and lick from my elbow to my wrist. I wish that it tasted like tar, but I'm a junkie. It tastes like escape. Like drowning my fears and my failures. The boy drops me and I slip on vampire remains. My whole body shakes as I try to get as much as I can. I've never had it like this. It's a fucking holiday. All of my senses are opening. My pupils blowing. The hallucinations are coming. I want them so bad. I don't want to be afraid.

"What the _fuck_?" blonde boy spits.

Colours dance in front of my eyes. I can't control my body anymore. But before I lose it, I hear Alec whisper, "Oh Magnus..."


	3. Crash

_I keep forgetting, but the vampire blood addiction thing is partly taken from True Blood. Does anyone else think it's adorable when Eric says "Sorry?" Also, I'll be updating this story every Monday and Thursday. I had to make some sort of schedule because my hours changed at work. Sorry for the inconvenience.  
><em>

**Crash  
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I'm so out of my head that I imagine we're on a flying motorcycle.

Me and Alec, soaring over New York City. Out of Brooklyn and into Manhattan. The whole time I'm laughing while tears run down my face. My arms are in a death grip around his chest, which I can't stop feeling with my hands. I try to get friction against him, but it's impossible. The blood always makes me horny and I don't care what I'm doing in real life. Probably rolling around in blood with my hand down my pants. It's not a pretty sight, but it's happened.

Hallucination Alec lands us outside of his giant wobbly apartment building and gives me a necklace. He tilts my head back and I start to fall over, so he catches me. I give him a hug and kiss his neck. He shudders and pushes me an arms length away. The necklace is on and everything goes white. I'm blind and deaf and unaware of my body. I can feel arms supporting me - almost dragging me - and then the whiteness goes away.

Alec is standing over me. I'm in a bath tub, sitting on the floor with all of my clothes on. He has the water running on me, nice and warm. A cell phone is held to his ear by his shoulder. "Don't tell mom and dad about him!" he ordered. "Jace, this isn't a joke. There's something seriously... strange about him." A big pause. Alec doesn't seem to notice that the necklace fell off. I'm in that stage where the vamp blood makes me want to stare at walls and drool. They call it the plateau, right before the crash. "If you're so worried, send Isabelle over in the morning. I think I can handle one junkie for the night."

"Alec..." I mumble, then put my head on my knees. He doesn't hear it.

One of his hands slides down my back, the other down my chest, and he peels off my shirt. I'm starting to wonder what was a hallucination and what wasn't, but my mind can't hold onto it long enough. My body is closing shop for the night. Everything is turning off, one by one. Mind. Arms. Legs. Eyes. Mouth. Spine. I go catatonic, staring at the shiny shower lever in front of me.

XXX

I crash while I'm sleeping. The nightmares are horrible, mostly because they're things I've actually seen. People tied down and brutalized. Split open and devoured. One of my terrible too-real dreams is of a Fae party I went to with Raphael. There was a screaming woman on the table, and everyone got a piece of her.

Through the whole thing I wasn't allowed to cry.

XXX

My throat burns; I must be screaming.

Two strong hands wrap around my shoulders and I'm suddenly face to face with Alec. His eyes are mostly whites, his bottom lip bleeding a little bit. I used to have that habit - biting my lips when I was nervous. The crash has left me sweaty and empty. "Magnus, shh, calm down. You're safe now. Just shut up."

I stop screaming and start coughing. This is so horrible and embarrassing. Alec doesn't deserve this. He's just a nice guy and I'm a big problem. The worst part is that all I can think about is getting more blood. I need it. I need it bad. Alec grabs something from the side of the bed. It's long and silver - sort of like a metallic magic wand. He runs it down the curve of my shoulder blade. It's hot, but it makes breathing easy and the aching go away.

Everything comes into focus and I'm sober again, just like that. I can see Alec in the bright moonlight coming in through the curtains. Weeks of drying out completed in ten seconds. Alec flips the silver wand without any thought. It flies backwards and lands right where it was before. "That's called a rune," he said. "It shouldn't work on you, but it does."

I reach back and try to touch the heated skin. It's cooling so quickly, like whatever he drew is sinking in.

"Jace thinks that maybe you're one of us," Alec went on, "but I don't."

"One of who?" My voice is a croak.

Alec shakes his head. He's sitting on the edge of his bed, but I know he was sleeping in the chair before. "I'll explain in the morning. Just go to sleep."

"I'm not sleeping in this bed if you're in that chair."

He turns his head to stare at the chair and then back to me, his face torn. "Okay, fine," he says. "Scoot over."

Well, that wasn't what I expected. I do as he says and Alec stretches out beside me. He's fully dressed, socks included. He gives me a look that says, "Are you happy now?" and I am. "How old are you?" I ask.

"Eighteen," he says.

It's surprising, but I've lived alone since I was sixteen so I'm not one to talk. "Nineteen," I say. "And a half."

"Really? You seemed so much older..."

I frown. "Did you just call me _old_?"

"I called you _mature_."

Oh. "Thanks... You're mature too."

"Thank you."

We're silent. I think he's falling asleep, but I can feel how warm he is next to me. I want to touch him. I want to feel his skin. It's so soft and pale. I don't want to have sex with him. I don't want to kiss him passionately or anything like that. I just want him to hug me. I just want to feel warm. "Alec, are you gay?" I ask. It just comes out.

His head is turned towards me, so I see both of his eyes peep open. "Um..."

My face goes red and I tilt my head down. "Never mind. That was rude."

"Promise not to tell anyone?" It takes me by surprise, him trusting me. I nod anyways. Alec licks his bottom lip, wetting the dried blood. For the first time he seems to notice it and raises his sleeve to wipe it away. "I... um. Yeah. I'm... you know. Gay."

Tiny little fireworks go off in my head. I'm doing a fucking tap dance, singing "I have a chance! I have a chance! Sweet lord, he's gay, I have a chance!" On the outside I just smile. "It may surprise you, but I am too."

Alec blinks, then snorts, then starts laughing. I don't even consider being mad. I just laugh along with him. When he stops laughing, I do too, and then we both go silent again. I fall asleep, feeling irrationally safe.


	4. Identity

**Identity  
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Alec is gone when I wake up, but I can hear him. He's not close, but his apartment has wicked acoustics.

"Jace and I followed him. He was all alone in this warehouse. We thought it was the nest, but Jace only found his stuff."

I get out of his bed, feeling completely fine. I'm not craving blood. I'm not sore. My bones don't even hurt. Whatever Alec drew on me is doing its job a moment I consider just walking out, but I realize I'm in my underwear again. The same underwear. Eww, I really need a change of clothes. There's a folded pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt on Alec's chair. Under them, a pair of boxers.

What an angel.

"So are you keeping him here like a pet, or what?"

A woman is in his apartment, and she doesn't sound happy. I get dressed quick and hesitate at the door, unsure of what I should do with my boxers. There's a laundry hamper, so I toss them in there, hoping Alec's okay with that. I look up from the hamper and freeze. In front of me is a huge portrait of a golden winged... thing. It doesn't look human in the slightest - more like a weird golden monster with huge blue eyes peering out of every feather. It sort of creeps me out that it was staring at me all night - and that Alec thinks it's perfectly normal to have something so ugly hanging in his bedroom.

"Not a pet." There's a lot of clanging - Alec's in the kitchen. "Do you two listen to me at all, or what? I told you - he was almost at half consumption when I ran into him. There was no way he could have survived if he was human. And he can take runes."

"Alec, if you're lonely you can come home. You don't have to bring in strays - "

"Morning, Magnus." Alec beams at me as I slink into the doorway and lean awkwardly on the frame. "Feeling better?"

I nod. The kitchen smells amazing. He's making French Toast. "Much."

There's a girl sitting in the stool I'd taken yesterday. Her black hair is coiled on top of her head and a deep purple dress hangs from her curved body. A whip is curled around her thigh, which I can see from the way she's sitting. I cringe at it, knowing exactly how much skin it would tear. She shares a striking resemblance with Alec, with her winged eyebrows and high cheekbones.

"I'm Isabelle," she says.

I feel like she's imagining me naked, that's how intense her dark gaze is. "I'm Magnus."

"Is that your real name? I heard the Blood Lords rename their whores." She might as well have pulled out her whip and lashed me across the face.

"Isabelle!" Alec cries. "You're in my house, you be nice to my guest!"

She holds up her hands. "What did I say wrong?"

"Well, you called him a whore for one..."

I clear my throat. "It's okay, she's right. I am a whore. And no, Raphael doesn't rename us. That's Camille's thing."

Alec opens his mouth, then closes it. He shakes his head. "You _were_ a prostitute. Past tense."

"But - "

Isabelle cuts me off. "He's right. If Raphael is trying to kill you, you're obviously not going to be doing any work for him."

Alec smiles at that. He thinks I don't catch it, but I do, and my heart gives a violent jerk. For a moment I consider that he cares about me not prostituting, but then I remember that he's probably just glad that his knight in shining armor thing is going as planned. "Sit down, I made French Toast."

"Oh God, you and your cooking," Isabelle grumbles.

Alec is looking at me instead of her, like we're the ones having the conversation. "If the world wasn't so fucked up, I think I'd be a culinary school right now. Isabelle is just jealous that she can't make salad without it burning."

"I can't cook either," I say to Isabelle, trying to make things light and casual between us.

"Do they feed you in the vampire nest?"

No such luck, it appeared. "Blood and cum only."

Alec drops his spatula and Isabelle's eyebrows disappear into her swooped bangs. "Seriously? You can live off that?"

She seems genuinely interested, so I tell her. "They don't keep you in the nest all the time. Sometimes they send you out to do jobs. Or they make you go to clubs and draw in new customers. Or they let you go home. That's usually just for the ones they trust. You know, the ones they know will come back. Even then, most of the ones they trust run away and never come back."

"So you have a home outside of the nest?"

"I had one..." I look down at my hands. My fingers are knotting and unknotting. "I didn't think he knew where I was staying. I guess I was wrong."

Isabelle makes a disgusted noise and leans against the counter. "If it's so terrible, why do you keep going back?"

"Have you ever been sad? Like, sickeningly sad?"

She tilts her chin up, a sort of half nod. "Uh-huh."

"Multiply that by ten, kill off your whole family, and imagine you live alone in a dirty fucking warehouse. That you have no friends. That no matter where you run to, everyone will know you were a prostitute because of the giant tattoo on you throat and they'll judge you for it. They won't hire you or let you around their kids or trust you with anything ever again. Every time you sleep, you have nightmares about all of the fucked up shit you've seen and done. All because of one stupid mistake you made when you were sixteen." My voice barely shakes. Isabelle is shocked silent. "Now tell me, Isabelle, if you would choose to live your life like that, or if you'd find a way to make it all not matter?"

"Magnus..." Alec's voice is soft. He can't seem to find anything to say after my name.

I swallow, mouth dry. "Sorry, you asked," I say. "Could I please have some water?"

He gets me a glass of water and Isabelle mumbles, "I'm sorry."

"It's okay," I say. "So can someone explain to me what the fuck is going on?"

A plate slides into place in front of me and Alec quirks one corner of his mouth up. "Eat first."

XXX

"In the beginning, there were the angels and the demons," Alec begins. He's flipping through a giant book in his over stuffed living room. Isabelle is lounging on one of the couches, cleaning her nails with a dagger. I'm watching his nimble fingers peel the pages apart with obsessive focus. "The angels wanted the Earth to create a second heaven. The demons wanted the Earth to expand on hell. But they had a huge problem - neither could pass onto Earth. It wouldn't hold their forms. So they took from man and created the Light and the Dark. The Dark soon over ran the Light. Vampires and Fae and Wulven - they were the most appealing to humanity. Beauty and sin in a tight package. Man turned his back on the Light - but the Light never turned on man."

Isabelle snorts and Alec throws a pen at her. She flicks her wrist up and slices the metal in half.

"Mermaids, Shifters, Naiads - they're all the Light, all going extinct. They've given up on the battle, leaving no one to fight for good but the Nephilim."

"The what?"

Alec laughs while Isabelle glares. "The Nephilim - half man, half angel. Or so they say."

It takes me a moment to catch on. "Wait, you're a fucking _angel_?"

"Technically half," Isabelle pipes in, somewhat smugly. "Bow down."

I start to slide forward on my chair, unsure if I actually have to bow. Alec saves me the embarrassment and says, "The angel part doesn't mean much. We're still mortal. We're definitely not holy or wholesome or anything like that."

"Yeah, you should see the stack of Playboy's in Jace's closet. He probably has a small fortune in there."

I ignore whoever Jace is and ask, "What about this thing on my back?"

"It's a rune," Alec says. "Usually only Nephilim can wear them, but for some reason they work on you. I don't know why... Unless - " He cuts off his train of thought and sprints out of the room, into the little office next door. "One minute, I think I got it!" he shouts.

"Would you like a metal or a chest to pin it on?" Isabelle retorts.

She stares at me like I'm something in a zoo. "Do you like Alec?" she asks.

My ears go red, but my messy unspiked hair hides them. "He's very... kind," is all I can think to say. "Very kind" is something my Nana would say and I immediately feel like a tool.

Isabelle sits up. "You know what I mean. If you have a crush on him, get rid of it. He only gets hurt, trusting people like you."

"People like me?"

Alec is coming back. "Back off," she says quickly.

My stomach drops and I can't look at Alec. He stops behind me and quickly grabs the hem of my shirt. One swift tug, and he's looking at whatever he drew. "This rune is for awareness, stability, and perception. Perfect sobering rune."

Isabelle appears over my shoulder. "Whoa, Alec, where did you learn that?"

"Saw it in a book," he says.

"And you just tried it out on a human? Jesus, Alec, he could have died!"

My stomach drops. "You tried to kill me?"

Alec shakes his head. "It wouldn't have killed you. It would have just made you sick. And honestly, the way you were flailing in my bed the other night, it was worth the risk." I turn red again and try not to imagine Alec pinning me down to the bed. I can't remember the nightmare, but I know I was having one. Two sleep crashes in a row - I can't decide if that's lucky or not. "While I was drawing it, I kept messing up on these spirals."

"Those are weird..." Isabelle noted.

"Exactly what I thought. This rune is what's called an Adjustable - the Nephilim took it from somewhere else and modified it so that it works on us. The power from a rune depends on what it means in Enoch, the language of the angels. In Enoch this means what it provides. Stability, awareness, all of that. But these spirals are Eredun. Eredun is demon language."

"Wait, so they took this from demons?" Isabelle runs her fingers across the rune and I see flashes of vamp blood and feel sick.

Alec smacks her hand away. "Don't touch it. You'll mess with its power."

She shrugs and falls back onto the couch. "So what's the big revelation? Is he turning into a vampire or something?"

Oh God. Please God, no. I turn white as a sheet and meet his eyes in full on panic mode. "I'm turning into a vampire? I don't want to be a vampire!"

Alec puts his hand on my arm and shakes his head. "No, you're not turning into a vampire. Vampires can't use runes. They're dead. Calm down." I calm down. He doesn't move his hand. "Magnus," he says, meeting my eyes full on, "I think you might be a warlock."


	5. Sight

_Harry Potter in two hours. I'm kind of freaking the fuck out._**  
><strong>

**Sight**

First thing's first. "Which side are warlock's on?"

Alec makes a face. "Pardon?"

"The Light side or the Dark side? Am I Skywalker or Darth Vader?"

Isabelle rushes in with, "They're the same person."

"Luke, not Anakin."

Alec looks lost. "Who are Luke and Anakin?"

"Star Wars. God, I've been spending too much time with Simon."

"Who's Simon?" we both ask.

Isabelle stands up. "Okay, bye."

Alec just lets her leave. He takes the chair across from me, cradling his book. "The warlock's are on neither side. They're on their own side. Or at least they would be, if they weren't extinct." He hands me the book. There's a picture of a man with a huge beard and all black eyes raining fire and lightning down on a village. The book is in Latin so I can't read any of it. I give it back to Alec, frowning.

"If I'm a warlock, why don't I have any powers?"

"Have you ever tried to use them?"

I look at a book across the room and try to will it over to me. Of course nothing happens. I pout. "I don't think I'm a warlock."

Alec stares at the book, then at me. He raises his left hand. "Do this." I copy him with a dubious expression. "Okay, now snap your fingers." He snaps his, and then I snap mine. Amazingly, nothing happens.

"Maybe I need a magic wand."

Alec nods. "Wait, I have a stick in my office."

"Why?"

He lifts his eyebrows, incredulous. "It looked cool. Why else?"

There's a lot of scraping and swearing. When Alec's searching passes the five minute mark, I pick the book back up and stare that the warlock. His eyes freak me out. They're completely black and dented in, like the person who hand wrote the entire book pressed too hard when they were drawing him. Staring at the writing starts to hurt my eyes. I begin to close it, but not before I catch a single word - the. It's written in English, though I'm certain it had been Latin a moment before. As I watch, both pages begin to shift and slide until it's all written in English.

The Warlock - fearsome in his destruction, light in his hand. The mighty divide between good and evil. During the War of Ages, it was the Warlock who forced the Vampire into darkness. He, who straddled the line between heaven and hell, cast a mighty spell and turned the sun into an enemy. When night fell, the Vampire swore to destroy all Warlock kind. While the Warlock was much stronger, he was unable to breed with the humans. Vampire found strength in numbers and defeat he who took away the sun. Legend states that the Warlock Banus opened a portal and escaped to the Breathless Plane - purgatory. The Breathless Rock and its inscription stand up to that myth.

_Solaris Cantartio,_

_Ech Almunze,_

_Hatia Aluz,_

_Nocturne Roaman,_

_Recherne Aluz,  
><em>

_Magnus Banus Tere,_

_Purgatorio Comme._

"Incantation of the sun, we have been condemned. Walk in your night and await the day we return. I, Magnus Banus, let Purgatory come." Even though I'm reading the strange jumbled up language, it comes out in English.

I hear wood clatter against marble and look up. Alec is standing in the doorway, mouth hanging open. There are papers flying all around the room, the covers of books flapping open and shut. It's turning my already horrible hair into a windswept, tangled mess. The weirdest park is the tint - it's like everything in the room is black and blue, but at the same time everything looks normal. There are two Alec's on top of each other. One is wearing and ugly thrift store NYU sweater and a shocked expression, and the other is half naked, wrapped in golden light, with glowing blue eyes. Quickly, I look down at my own hands and see long blackish claws wrapped in the same golden light.

And then I blink and it's gone.

I'm staring at my long, honey coloured fingers. I touch them to my face, expecting them to cut. They don't. Soft pads. Human. I look back down at the book and the words immediately switch to English. The warlock's picture begins moving, the blacks of his eyes swirling. The momentary relief is washed away. The hands that hold the book are clawed, but they're not at the same time - the double image, just like with Alec.

I blink. It doesn't go away.

"Alec," I say loudly. My heart is pounding. I drop the book. "Alec!" I nearly shout.

He rushes across the room and then stops, unsure. A small, distressed noise comes out of my throat and the wind in the room picks up. I slide out of the chair, looking at the hands - the fucking demon claws - and the light. Alec can't fight with whatever is happening to me. He doesn't know the answer from a book. With no options left, he chooses to try and calm me down by comforting me - or by smothering me in his chest. Either way, his arms wrap around me and I'm enveloped in the white and gold. I shut my eyes and when I open them, the wind is gone and we're both kneeling on the floor, hugging.

He smells like laundry soap and lemons.

Alec pulls back and loosens his grip. He's just as confused as I am, but I don't think for the same reasons. I see his eyes flicker down to my lips and watch his Adam's apple bob. Then he clears his throat and stands up.

"Well," he says, "I think you're definitely a warlock."

"You think?" My voice cracks painfully and I shakily get back into the chair. "Jesus, that was horrible."

Alec sits on the edge of the other chair, staring at the closed warlock book. "How did you do that?"

"I have no clue."

"Do you think you could do it again?"

I stare at him like he has two heads. "Why the fuck would I ever want to do that again?"

Alec drops his head, shoulders tense. "They're your powers. They're part of you."

"I don't want them. At all."

"Magnus - "

"No, don't you Magnus me. You don't even know half of what just happened. Trust me, it was not pretty." I immediately look at my hands. They're completely normal. Too normal, in fact. The scabs on my knuckles are gone. Completely healed by whatever had overtaken me. Maybe... No, I'm not thinking about it. Whatever it was that just happened to me has never, ever happened before. I would have remembered it.

"If it's any consolation," Alec says quietly, "you looked pretty cool. You know, the whole black-eyed wind-from-no-where-thing really works for you."

After a moment of silent debate, I allow myself to accept that comment as a compliment. Part of me wants to tell Alec about how he looked with the double sight, but I'm afraid that if I tell him that he'll somehow pry what I look like out of me.

"So now what?" I say.

Alec thinks for a moment. "Jace should be bringing around your stuff sooner or later. Then we can start to plan our attack on the nest."

"You know where the nest is?" I blurt.

"No. But you do."

I sigh and shake my head. "No, I don't."

Caught off guard, all Alec can do is stare at me a little wide eyed, his mouth a tight line. "But I thought you were a - "

"Blood Whore, yes. But they don't just let us walk in and out of the nest. They make us go to meeting places, then they take us to the nest blinded."

Alec chews on that for a moment, planning. "You know where some of these meeting places are?"

I laugh. "Honey, I know where all of the meeting places are."

"Do you have to be a marked prostitute to get in?" he asks quickly.

"Not necessarily. If you hang around and look like you know what you're doing, they'll usually take you." Instantly, I know what Alec plans on doing and I don't agree one bit. "But you guys can't go! It's too dangerous!"

He lifts his hands and shakes his head. "Calm down, Magnus. Not everything is set in stone. We'll work it out when Jace gets here."

I swallow thickly, feeling ill at the thought of sending someone into that place. It's something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. "What do we do until then?"

Alec smiles at me. His eyes crinkle in a clever way and my heart thunders away in my chest like it's trying to beat it's way out. "Have you ever played chess before?"


	6. Kiss

**Kiss  
><strong>

Alec lies to me when he says he's good at chess.

Good implies that he could possibly improve. Good implies that I have the slightest chance at beating him. Alec is not good - he is the greatest. He knows what I'm going to do five moves before I do it. The whole game is basically him chasing me around the board with a wicked smile on his face. And when he finally puts an end to my misery and knocks over my king, he bats his long eyelashes and asks, "Want to play again?"

This happens four times.

When Jace finally strolls into Alec's apartment - and I mean that he literally strolls, like there's some empowering tune playing in his head - I've already grabbed Alec's king and am in the process of beating it to death with one of my pawns while Alec laughs at my frustration. He takes in the scene, sighs, and drops a big cardboard box filled with my stuff onto the floor.

"Again with the chess?" he asks, putting his dirty shoe up onto the edge of the box. "Alec's a strategist. You're never going to beat him."

"Maybe if I had a big stick with a nail in it," I mumble, glowering at him.

He gives me a delighted smile and I'm melted pudding on the inside. "Don't be bitter. I win against everyone. I did nothing but play chess for a year straight when I was fifteen. Time well spent, wouldn't you say?"

I scrunch up my nose like a child and say, "I wouldn't know. I was too busy having fun with real people."

"Touche!" Jace cries, while Alec frowns, put out.

He pushes his little chess table away, muttering, "I still won," and then turns his attention on Jace. "Find anything at the warehouse?"

"Other than rats and eyeshadow?" He kicks the box lightly with his toe. "Nothing. No signs of vampires. There was a sewer grate in the basement, though. The vamp might have gotten in from there."

I thought back to the attack. How had I not noticed a vampire in the office before? Unless he came in through the boarded up door next to my bed... Which led to a set of stairs, which went down to the basement. I felt immediately stupid for thinking the warehouse was safe.

"I think they might be living in the underground. The sewers seem too wet, though... Maybe they have something like the Fae have. An enchanted dugout."

I shake my head. "The nest is full of concrete."

Jace acknowledges me fully for the first time. "So you do know where it is?"

"No..." I start.

Alec fills him in on all that I told him, and all that happened. When Jace hears the part about the wind and the eyes and the warlock, he stares straight at me. I stare straight back, trying to look formidable, but next to him I feel skinny, weak, and stupid. I don't think I like Jace, however he's related to Alec. They definitely don't look like each other...

"So that solves it," Jace says. "Which one of us is hanging around the pick up spot?"

I open my mouth to volunteer Jace, but Alec cuts me off. "It can't be Magnus. They have a hit out on him. And you're too reckless, Jace. The moment you get uncomfortable, you'll kill someone and we'll all be fucked."

"You can't go," I say, heart fluttering. "You want to run in there and bring the whole nest down? You're just one person!"

Alec shakes his head. "No, we just want to find out where it is. And I won't be alone." He stands up and stretches. I want to do the same, but I just sit there, staring at the strip of bare skin revealed by his shirt riding up. "Jace is my parabatai - my fighting partner. He can find me anywhere. All he has to do is follow me and we'll know where it is. Get in, get out."

I fold my arms, looking away from his stomach. Jace meets my eyes and I know immediately that he saw me staring. Unlike Isabelle, he isn't mad. He just smirks and shakes his head, like I did something whacky but acceptable. "Once you get in, how do you intend on getting out? They'll think you're in there to get blood. And to get blood, they'll make you have sex with them."

Alec goes a little pale at that and I feel his eyes flick over me. "I don't intend on staying that long."

"And if things go wrong?"

Jace snorts. "Don't over think it, Harry Potter. Alec's Nephilim - he's as strong as ten vampires, and twice as smart. He'll be fine."

The whole thing isn't sitting right with me. I don't want Alec to go in there, with his sweet face and his kind eyes. He doesn't look afraid, though. He's thinking, planning, coming up with a strategy. I look at the chess board and see all of the different traps he set for me. How many webs he spun and caught me in. The mind is a wicked weapon, and his is the sharpest I've ever seen. Add onto that his effortless grace, balance and stubbornness and I have nothing to stand on - he can handle himself.

He's going.

Not too long after that, Alec sends Jace home to get supplies and catch a nap before the big mission. The whole time Alec keeps giving me this look, like I have really tacky eyeliner or there's a bug on my face - worried, fascinated, and afraid to say anything. I inform them both that the best time to pick up a vampire is at midnight, so that's what time we're going to be in Central Park at. We have a couple of hours, but I don't know how to ask Alec where I'm sleeping. The couch seems comfy, but it's too short for me and honestly I like being close to Alec. While I think all of this through, Alec goes over to the window, presses a button and his curtains all swish closed, plunging the apartment into darkness. My skin prickles. We're all alone in the dark. I can see him shuffle through the room, hesitating beside the couch. He doesn't know whether or not we should both sleep in his bed.

Then he passes the couch. I realize a moment before he does anything that he closed the curtains so I can't see him. So I can't see his face when he takes me by the wrist and leads me down the hall to his bedroom. He lets go at the foot of the bed. I can make out his face just in the slightest when he bites his bottom lip and reaches up to brush my hair away from my forehead.

It's like everything slows down and focuses. All I see is the outline of Alec's face. All I feel is his skin, so close to mine but not touching. Alec doesn't say anything. He just touches my face, his hand running a circuit over my cheekbone. Each time he completes a circuit, his face gets a little bit closer to mine, like he's afraid I'm going to surge forward and bite him. He's holding back, and for a moment I'm certain it's because of me. Maybe he's unsure about me. I want to prove him wrong - no, not just that. I need to show him and myself that I'm more than some disposable sex machine. I can be sweet and loving and caring and all of that shit that teen girls sing about.

I don't know why I'm so nervous. I've done way more than kiss with guys who's faces I've never even seen. Maybe that's why this feels so much different. I want this to matter. For some reason my hands are unsteady when I bring him closer. Alec stumbles into me a little bit, like he knows he should be moving his feet, but he can't find the strength to do it. I can feel his heart pounding against my chest. It's been a long time since I've elicited that reaction from someone. I tilt his head up with my pointer finger and trail my thumb over his jawbone. His jaw tightens and I smile before lightly touching his lips to mine. They're warm and a bit rough from his constant chewing. He puts his hands on my hips and leans into the kiss. It lasts for a few moments, soft and sweet like toast and honey.

I feel my skin tingle and open my eyes. The double vision is back. Alec is glowing, gold snaking over his skin, brighter than before in his living room. The warmth radiating off of him makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I watch in confusion as normal Alec's eyes fly open and his cheeks flush. Suddenly he's picking me up and we're on the bed, him above me. Wind roars through the room, turning his black t-shirt into a flag. Alec kisses me sloppily, but eagerly, and I kiss him right back. He runs his hands up my sides and hooks them over my shoulders and we roll so I'm on top of him, opening my mouth and letting his tongue in. I push it back and force my own into his mouth. It tastes like the chicken noodle soup we ate for lunch/dinner. I want to taste more of him, all of him.

My hands slide up under his shirt and skim over the hot, soft, glowing skin. He catches his knee up against my hip and I hold it there. My mouth leaves his and I kiss my way over to his ear, tugging on the lobe. Alec groans and rocks his hips into mine. It feels so incredible. My eyes flutter and the wind picks up. Something is happening. Something indescribable. I've never been so horny in my life. Thank God Alec lent me a pair of sweat pants. My jeans would have been pure agony against this hard-on I'm sporting. I want to see Alec's face, hear him scream my name, feel his body shake as he orgasms.

But I know that's all wrong. That's not what he wants. That's not what either of us wants. Well, sure, it's what we want right now, but not in the long term. I've fucked up too much by not thinking long term.

It takes Herculean strength, but I pull myself away from him. I roll over and close my eyes, willing myself to be calm. Why is this happening to me? Why now? I've never had this double vision, crazy wind warlock thing happen to me before in my life, and now it's happened twice in the same day, both for reasons I can't even fathom.

Alec is breathing heavily beside me. "Wow," he says, his voice a few octaves higher than normal. He notices this and clears his throat. "Uh, sorry. That was... that was my fault."

My eyes snap open. Everything is normal. I turn my head and look at him in the dimness. I can see his face is red. "How was that your fault?"

He pushes back his hair. "I have Pathokinesis. I can... influence the emotions of other people. It's why - " Alec swallows hard. "It's why I've been in exile since I was ten."


	7. Garden

_I made a Tumblr for my FanFiction. www . motheatenmittens . tumblr . com_

**Garden  
><strong>

Alec's explanation is swift and borderline clinical. "Sometimes Nephilim have special gifts. Jace is stronger and faster than most. And Isabelle can use glamours like no one else. But my gift is a lot stronger than theirs. Technically, by old Clave laws - the Clave is like the government for Nephilim - I should have been arrested when they found out I had Pathokinesis. Emotions are powerful things, and from their view power equates to evil. But no one really cares about the rules in the New York Clave, and my Dad has a lot of sway, so when I turned ten, instead of leveling up my training, they bought me an apartment and staff to make sure I was okay, then swore to never mention me again." I can hear the hurt, but Alec keeps talking. "In ancient times people like me would have been rulers. I would have been head of the Clave, no questions asked. But having so much power... It gets corrupted easily, you know? And a lot of the ancient rulers didn't know how to use it right. Hell, I don't know how to use it right. I just know how to shut it off... Most of the time, anyways."

I can't help but feel angry, imagining Alec locked up in this place without his family. "So you just never talk to your family?"

He shakes his head. "My siblings visit me all the time, even though they're not allowed to. And I'm allowed to visit my home once a year. I used to visit more, but..." His voice cracks the tiniest bit and his skin gets hot. He turns his head away from me. "They don't want me around because they're afraid I'll use my powers to sway Clave decisions. As long as I'm out of the way, no one really cares about me."

"Why can't you visit your family as much anymore?" I ask, feeling for his hand. It's no where to be found.

Alec makes a small noise. "I was dangerous. My influence was too much. My little brother... Max... He got hurt." And I can tell that Alec doesn't want to say anything else about that. "I learned to control it, though. Well, I thought I did... I'm sorry."

"It's okay," I say. "I enjoyed it thoroughly."

But I have this sour taste in my mouth, like I should be upset about what he made me feel. There's a part of me wondering if the way my heart beats out of time whenever he's around is really because of the way I feel, or because of how he wants me to feel. A bigger part just doesn't want to know. That bigger part is afraid of fucking up a good thing - a nice guy with a nice place who seems to actually care for me. But do I care for him?

Shut up, Magnus. Just shut the fuck up.

"Maybe..." He trails off and I'm left to wonder "Maybe what?"

"Maybe?" I prompt.

His hand ghosts over my face. I can feel it, even though it doesn't touch me. "Maybe we can try again..."

I'm literally quivering from his near touch. I want him to touch me so bad that it hurts, but I don't think I can handle it. "Alec, don't start something you can't finish."

He pulls his hand back and I can just see him bite his bottom lip. "You're right..." he mumbles sadly. "It's... We shouldn't."

I sigh heavily, though I know deep down that I don't have the right to be upset. We just met 48 hours ago. "Let's get some sleep before tonight."

He nods and I get comfy. The rhythmic ticking of his alarm clock sends me off into strange half-sleep that I can't seem to get past. Worry prickles my skin, plucks at my heartstrings. A million things can - and will - go wrong. I can feel the night falling in my bones. That's another worry. The only thing keeping me from my addiction is the drawing on my back. I'm not sure that it will hold when I'm face to face with vampire blood, which I know will happen soon enough. You can't escape blood in the nest. Then again, when I think of blood, that feeling of obsession - that need to get it and get more - is replaced by the repulsion of sobriety. Is that enough? I hope it is. I pray to God that it is.

Before I can give myself a panic attack, Alec takes my hand in his and the same calmness that's been inexplicably falling over me during times of stress over the past two days fills me up. I see every terrible revelation and realize that each time, Alec was touching me. Calming me. Keeping me from going insane. And with that slightly troubling thought, I drop off into sleep.

XXX

"Is this really necessary?" Alec near moans. He looks sleepy and grumpy, but I'm not letting him ruin my fun.

I pull out another t-shirt from the wadded up clothes at the bottom of my box and hold it against Alec's torso. "You want people to think you're a whore? You have to dress like a whore. This is good. Take your shirt off."

He hesitates and then complies. His torso is dusted with light scars - shadows of old runes. "I'm too big for your clothes."

"All the tighter, all the better. Put it on."

He does as I say. The black t-shirt clings so tightly to him that he might as well not wear it. Perfect. I hand him a pair of pants hung thick with chains and riddled with rips, tears, and holes and shoo him off to the bathroom to squeeze into them in peace. While he's in there, I look through the box. I didn't think it was possible, but everything is in here. All of my shoes and clothes and make up - all of it in one box. Suffice to say, it's a pretty shitty feeling to have your whole life condensed like that.

"I'm not wearing this in public!" Alec cries from the doorway.

I look up and smile. He looks like the kind of guy who would bite and scratch and scream and like it - he looks like sex, plain and simple. "That's wonderful! Now come over here." He sits down on the floor with his knees drawn up to his chest, looking mad. I set up all of my make-up and he opens his mouth to protest. "I'm not doing what you think. Just wait."

It takes a lot of concentration and tongue biting, but I finally finish just as Jace walks in the door. I'm putting my stuff back in my box when Alec stands up and wipes floor dirt from his butt. He looks up at Jace, who gasps and then glares at me. "What the fuck happened?"

I grin to myself, waving a make-up brush. "Convincing, huh? Most vampires like it rough. They want to think they have a guy who can take a hit. Those are the ones you need to attract."

"Why?" Alec asks.

"Because they won't ask your name, or where you're from, or anything like that. They probably won't even let you talk. They just lead you back to their piece of the nest."

That was how it was for me the first couple of times, before Raphael saw me. Before the Blood Lord took a liking to me and branded me as one of his own.

Alec goes off to the bathroom to check out the giant yellowing shiner I gave him. I take it from his gasp that it's pretty convincing. He comes back out and he and Jace start talking about knives and things. I pull out my plain black jacket and put it on before finding a pair of whorish shoes that Alec can run in. Minutes later, the three of us are set.

"How fast can you run?" Jace asks me. "Because if you can't keep up, I'm not slowing down for you."

"I can run," is all I say, but I don't really know if I can. I was into track when I was fifteen, right before everything went to shit, but my body is definitely not what it used to be. The only thing keeping me from curling up into a shivering ball is the fresh rune drawn on my shoulder.

I expect the elevator to go down. I don't know how we're going to get to Central Park exactly, but I assume that it's going to involve public transit. Instead, we go up. The elevator opens up onto the roof. The view is gorgeous. There's a place for people to sit and a lovely garden, dead for the coming winter. There's even a shed. I don't notice anything weird about the shed until we're right up next to it. There's a giant symbol scrawled over the door and when I see it, I want to wander away from the building. I fight it, though, because Alec and Jace are opening the doors. Inside are two motorcycles, one worse for wear and the other gleaming. Jace pulls out the worn one and Alec takes the new one. Jace starts his up and I step back.

Where the hell is he going to go on a roof?

The engine revs and I watch in horror as he races towards the edge. He pulls up on the handles and the entire bike lifts. Jace flies off of the roof and circles over head while Alec's engine rips through the night. He waves at me and I rush over to it. It's always been a bit of a fantasy of mine to hop on some guys motorcycle and I refuse to let our destination poop all over my party. Alec shouts, "Hold on!" and I do.

We race towards the edge of the roof and I'm so certain that we're going to die that I start screaming. The whole world blurs and shudders and then everything is in black and blue again. My new eyes are wide as I look down and see we're not traveling on the ground. We're chasing Jace through the open air like some insane cracked out roller coaster. I expect Alec to be a safe, dependable driver, but he's fucking insane. He dips and rises for no reason other than listening to me scream and laughing at it.

By the time we reach the park, I'm certain that I've aged ten years. That my hair has gone completely white and that I've wet myself.

Also, I'm certain that I want to kick Alec in the shins very, very hard.

Alec lets me get off, then gets off himself. He shuts off the bike and walks it over to the bushes where Jace has stashed his own bike. They both come back a moment later, looking like quite the pair, all windblown. If I didn't know better, I would have suspected that Alec actually was a male prostitute and Jace was his client. But I do know better. They're closer than brothers, Alec had said. Brothers being the word that mattered. Jace checks his watch and looks around. "So where is this place?"

"Shakespeare's Garden," I say. "And Alec has to go alone. They only go for singles." Jace nods and Alec swallows hard and bites his lip. I remember how scared I was my first time and try to drum up some advice. "Don't worry about it," I say soothingly. "I've done this a hundred times before and I'm still alive."

That's the right thing to say, apparently. Alec takes in how not dead I am and lets out a breath. "Okay, let's go."

Jace and I fall into the trees and Alec takes the path. We follow him all the way the entrance of Shakespeare's Garden, and then lay low. There are other people hanging around, some of them I know, building up the courage to go into the Garden's. I pull the hood of the sweater I have on under my coat down farther, as if they can see me lurking way back in the frail fall leaves. Jace and I watch Alec shiver and shake, and I silently approve of the cold. It's making him look like a junkie, quivering for a fix.

Alec doesn't hesitate like the others. He puts his head down, rubs his arms, and marches into the Garden, into the darkness.


	8. Nest

**Nest  
><strong>

Alec had never felt so afraid or so alone.

The shadows of the Garden seemed to hold enumerable horrors, all watching him - waiting for him to fuck up. He'd been on hunts before, but that usually involved slinking through the dark unseen. In those scenarios he had always been the shadow. Now the objective was to be noticed. To draw attention to himself and pull someone in. It was harder than it looked. Alec knew he was playing a specific role. He couldn't just be Alec. He needed to be a junkie. He needed to be Magnus.

But the thought of Magnus in a place like this made him feel so sad that he couldn't concentrate.

He pushed it away and thought of acting like Magnus. Adopting his walk. He pushed his hips out a little bit and straightened up his spine. Magnus moved like a panther, lithe and purposeful. When he tried to mimic it, Alec felt like a gimping idiot with a load of crap in his too tight pants. Also, he was freezing. Addicts didn't feel the cold, Magnus had said.

Well, then why the hell did Magnus own a coat?

He found a bench and sat down, just like Magnus had told him to. He started scraping at the ground with the heel of his hard soled boot, trying to take his mind off of what he was doing. The bench creaked next to him and a hand, feather soft and ghostly pale, touched his own. Normally Alec could feel something about a person through their touch. If they were ill tempered or erratic or kind hearted or terribly hurt - all by one touch. The person stroking the back of his hand was nothing. They felt nothing. They were nothing.

Coldness.

Alec slowly looked up and saw the man sitting next to him. He'd hoped in vain to pick up a woman, which Magnus had said did happen, but it appeared that he had pulled the unlucky card. A great hulk of a man had found Alec to his liking, and was trailing his frigid fingers up his wrist, over his forearm, to his elbow. When he got to his upper arm, his thick, sausage-like fingers wrapped around Alec's biceps and jerked him up onto his feet. Alec's first instinct was to punch him. To use his Nephilim strength and grace to make the man wish he'd never been reborn. Instead, he got up and let the man push him roughly against a tree trunk. He caught himself on it as the man wrapped a rough scarf over his eyes.

Alec tried to blink, but it was on too tight. The man grabbed his hands and he let him. They were tied together so tightly that Alec couldn't feel his fingers. His second thought was that Magnus hadn't told him about the hand tying. His first thought was that Magnus let people treat him like this all of the time. It made him feel sick to be pushed around like a piece of meat, not because it was offending him, but because he knew that Magnus had been willing to do this over and over again, all to numb the pain his life had been filled with.

The vampire led him out of the Garden. He forced himself to stumble, even though it was in his nature to have perfect balance. They seemed to walk forever, but the normal bustling sounds of New York City were lost. All attempts at keeping his bearings were useless. They went from being out in the open air to being somewhere small and stuffy. The vampire let go of Alec for a moment. There was a loud scraping noise and then they were walking again, down flight after flight of stairs and then into a strange, echoing kind of place. Moisture beaded on his skin. He knew they were somewhere humid, though it was still freezing. And everything seemed to be going downhill.

Alec became more and more claustrophobic the further they descended. What if Jace couldn't find him? What if they were caught before they found him? What if someone spotted Magnus and recognized him?

What if Magnus saw vampire blood and lost it?

The scene from the warehouse exploded in front of Alec's closed eyes. He had seen some messed up shit in his days, but nothing compared to watching an addict lick blood off of himself. Because in that moment, Magnus wasn't Magnus anymore. He wasn't witty or charming or intelligent. He wasn't sexy or beautiful or adorable. He was a tortured, wretched thing.

Thinking about it, Alec wanted to throw up. He held it back and kept on walking.

The wetness went away as voices grew. Screaming echoed on the stone walls, some in ecstasy and some in terror. The hand on his arm tightened and the vampire laughed. The blindfold was torn roughly from his eyes and Alec blinked in the darkness. There were flickering lights up ahead - fire. The smoke caught up on the ceiling and struggled to get free. Alec looked all around himself, but it was too dark. The floor was rough, like it had been torn up. He heard sick squelching noises and soft moans of pain and pleasure and knew that vampires were feeding around him.

The vampire holding onto Alec marched him straight into the light, where the wide tunnel opened up into a giant hall. Alec closed his mouth tight to keep for screaming at what he saw. People hung from the ceiling on rusty chains connected to hooks. Their slashed, rotting bodies were food for hordes of vampires. Others were chained to the walls, being whipped. He didn't know which ones were luckier - the living or the dead. Whole groups of humans and vampires were congealed into blood sharing masses. Alec could pick out who was vamp and who was human right away by their skin. The vampires were chalky, somehow pale no matter what their skin tone. And they had giant fangs and unholy red eyes. That was a bit of a giveaway.

Alec turned his head so he was facing frontwards, away from the main room of the nest. The vampire led him past all of that. Alec could hear people fucking and sucking on either side of himself. There were other rooms carved out of the cement, straight into the dirt. Wherever they were, humans built it before the vampires took over. The vampire pushed Alec into one of the rooms and he fell, his hands still tied behind his back. He looked up, suddenly realizing that Magnus and Jace were no where to be found.

The vampire pulled a shabby curtain closed. The room was about the size of Alec's own bedroom at home, with a soiled mattress in the corner and torches stuck into the dirt walls. The dirt was all held back by the thick, hard mucus that formed when a vampire died. How many of their own kind had they killed to build their nest?

The vampire smiled an unpleasant smile, loosening his belt. The buckle was a rat's skull. Alec started to worm away, hyperventilating. What had he gotten himself into? He could fight off this vampire easy, but how the fuck would he get out of there? He would get lost and the vampires would find him. Kill him. Torture him and then tear him apart.

Or drink his blood until he became the walking dead.

The vampire grabbed Alec around his waist and threw him onto the bed. He grabbed onto his pants and popped the button unceremoniously. They were off in an instant, along with his boots. He struggled, but that seemed to be what the vampire wanted. He grabbed Alec's face roughly, pulled his elbow back, and punched him so hard he forgot where he was for just a moment. Stars exploded in front of his eyes.

Alec pulled his wrists apart and his bounds snapped like wet toilet paper. He brought his hands up and grabbed onto the vampires shoulders, urging him to feel exhaustion. It didn't work. The coldness flooded in and Alec's eyes fluttered. The vampire slapped him and then grabbed onto his shirt. It took him three good tugs to rip it off. Alec hit his chest, but not half as hard as he could have. He didn't know what to do. Let him keep going or fight him off. Logic said to fight. He didn't want to ever have sex this way, struggling under some vile demon bloodsucker. But at the same time, that was the only way to stay alive. Magnus did it all the time - how bad could it be?

The vampire pinned him down and rocked his hips against Alec. It didn't feel good, like with Magnus. It hurt. He cried out in pain and the vamp laughed. "Like that, slut?" He rocked his hips again, harder, and Alec squeaked.

He slammed his fists weakly against the vampire's chest, hoping to buy himself some time. Fight and risk being completely alone in a vampire nest or take it and pray Jace got there after it was all over? The last thing he wanted was for his brother to see him being raped by a vamp.

The vampire took his pushing to be a sign that Alec was merely unhappy and pulled back. "What?" he spat. "What do you want, you needy little bitch?"

Alec opened his mouth but didn't know what to say. He shook his head and bit his lip, completely unaware of how many blood addicts bit their lips when they had cravings. The vamp sat up and growled a real, thick growl. He extended his fangs and then bit his wrist. He offered it to Alec, who just stared, horrified and disgusted. The vampire snarled and shoved his bleeding wrist in Alec's face. The blood smeared all over his mouth and his teeth. He turned his head and it streaked up his cheek. The vampire prepared to hit Alec again when the curtain of his room was pulled back.

Alec's prayers were answered.

Jace charged in and pulled the vampire off of him. He hopped up off of the bed and pulled a dagger out of the hidden pocket in his boxers. The vampire barely had time to hiss, "Nephilim," at Alec's glowing eyes before he had driven the dagger through his heart. The vampire didn't explode like the one in the warehouse. He turned white and then melted into a puddle of carcass.

Alec grabbed his pants and his shoes and shoved them on. The shirt was in tatters, so he left it. He didn't even think about what had just almost happened. Thinking about it would acknowledge it, and that was the last thing he wanted to do. "Where's Magnus?" he asked.

Jace's eyes went wide and he looked around. "Fucking_ fuck_!" Jace spat. "He was right behind me."

There was a screech somewhere far off in the tunnel and then the sound of a hundred running feet. Alec's heart dropped painfully and he swore profusely before sprinting out into the tunnel and back towards the main room.


	9. Escape

_www . motheatenmittens . tumblr . com is where I sometimes post teasers, witty commentary about chapters, and extras from stories. __I always follow back._**  
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**Escape**

One minute I'm walking behind Jace, keeping my head down and pretending I belong in the nest, and the next I'm completely fucked.

A hand grabs me by the back of the sweater, another clamps down over my mouth and I'm dragged backwards into the darkness. Jace keeps on trotting, apparently too busy looking for Alec to notice that I've gone missing. And honestly, I'm okay with that. If anyone needs saving right now it's him. I'm already a lost cause anyways. Because I know who has me and I know what she wants.

Jess lets go when we're in her room. She pushes me onto the soiled mattress. I scoot back on it, fear fighting with anger. She tilts her silver head at me and smiles. "Well, well, well. If it isn't Magnus. Raphael's favourite little pet, come home at last. I hear Big Daddy's not very happy with his little one, is he?"

I glare at her, but say nothing. She unbuttons her thin, stained jean skirt so that she's standing there in nothing but her panties and a dirty band t-shirt.

"Looks like you're going to have to do an awful lot of sucking up to Big Sister to get her to keep her mouth shut."

My veins are aching. The torchlight thrown against her pale skin is just bright enough for me to make out the veins. But something has changed in me. The desperation is gone. I close my eyes and think of Alec, think of his smile and his eyes, and I have something outside of blood to live for. "Oh, incest. That gets me right and randy."

Jess snarls at me. She's had a crush on Raphael and every boy or girl who's ever worked for him. And by crush, I mean she wants to crush them into gooey paste. Keep her mouth shut, huh? That seems to be code for ripping my throat out. Jess lunges for me and I roll out of the way, crashing into a nightstand made of bone. It clatters to the floor, letting an ugly old jewelry box smash against the waxy dirt. She howls like a wounded animal.

"That was my grandmother's!" Jess screeches, taking a swipe at me. Her fingernails slice through my chest, cutting Alec's shirt and leaving shallow cuts. The scent of my exposed blood really doesn't help the situation.

"I bet she's real proud of you," I spit.

Her real fangs snap out

This is it. I'm going to die.

Jess lands on top of me like a ton of bricks, knocking out all of my breath. Her nails gouge my shoulders and her teeth bury deep into my throat. I open my mouth to scream, but no sound comes. The ice of her teeth in my throat is more painful than I could ever imagine. Vampires bit me all the time, sure, but never when I was sober. My vision blurs and for a second I'm taken back to a bathroom stall. Trance music is pounding outside and there are hands in my hair, pulling me up from an open fly. My head is tugged back, throat exposed, and teeth sink into the flesh. The vampire pulls and pulls and pulls, taking so much from me. Too much. I grab his shirt and push, but he won't budge. Everything starts to go dark. The world looks like it's blue and black, and the vampire isn't a vampire anymore. It's a horrible skinny white wraith with scarlet running over it.

It's nothing.

I dig in my golden edged claws and growl quick words in a language I don't understand. The vampire flies backwards through the stall. He smacks his head against a mirror and lays still. From the corner of the room, a pair of deep green eyes watch me.

In real life Jess goes flying upwards, defying gravity to flatten herself against the ceiling. Wind is whipping through the foul cave room. An onslaught of Eredun and Enoch and Latin rolls smoothly off of my tongue, as if I'm fluent in it. Jess gives a loud wail that's lost in the cacophony outside and her heart is ripped clean out of her chest.

Vampire blood rains down on me and the rune on my back sears into me.

I don't want it. It's disgusting, like tar only freezing cold.

Near vomiting, I stumble out of Jess's room and down the stinking corridor to the main tunnel. A junkie scurries after me and grabs onto my arm. He starts licking my shoulder. A tattered looking girl grabs my hips and starts licking my stomach. They're stopping me from walking with their boney hands. Another follows, and then another and another. I hear someone scream, "DINNERTIME!" and all of those who are hungry for some euphoria come stampeding my way. People push and tackle and bite and punch for a chance to lick some of the thick blood dripping off of my body. No one realizes that there's much more where that comes from in the room down the hall.

Someone bites into me and I push them down. Another bites, then another and another. I try to fight off the crowd harder, willing the double vision and the wind to come back. It doesn't. One of the junkies gets tired of my struggling and hits me over the head with a piece of wood they find lying around. I fall down face first and another junkie flips me over so he can suck on the knee of my pants. A guy and a girl, their faces skeletal, lick my face. They all start pulling on me, grabbing my leg and dragging it this way, taking the other that way. I scream when they pull my arms up with enough force to pop one of them out of it's socket.

And then I hear a swish and a click. All of the bodies around me go still, and then slide, sliced through like meat. Alec stands above the sea of dead junkies, holding a giant folding blade. His face and bare torso are smeared with blood. He's like the Grim Reaper, watching as those still alive go running to tell their Master's what happened. We don't have much time.

I try to get to my feet, but I can't. My left ankle hurts so bad I think I really am going to vomit. I look down and see that someone took a bite out of it and it's bleeding like a motherfucker. Alec flicks his blade and it soars up into the air. He catches it in his other hand, a completely folded, harmless baton. He stuffs it down the waistband of his pants and then bends down to pick me up. I'm swooped in the air with such effortlessness that for a moment I wonder just how much Alec's lean muscles can bench press.

I can hear people running for us and look over Alec's shoulder to see Jace round the bend at mach ten. Alec starts running alongside him, both ridiculously fast. For a moment I'm glad Alec is carrying me, because there's no way I could run like they can. I tuck my out of socket arm against my chest and peer over Alec's shoulder. Whores and junkies are streaking down the tunnel, but they're soon overthrown by the vampires, who run on all fours like bounding dogs. Their fangs snap and gnash, red eyes blazing.

Jace spins on his heel and runs backwards, keeping an insane pace. He pulls a disc out of his flat backpack and clicks a button. Blades erupt from its sides and he throws it. I watch the disc decapitate a vampire and come bounding back, soaked with blood. Jace catches the disc and throws it again, like he's playing a demented game of Ultimate Frisbee against himself.

I look up at Alec, who's panting. Sweat sticks his hair to his forehead. He can't keep running like this forever, and we're bound to run into some vampires, running back up the tunnel like this. Fear is hot and itchy inside my throat. I try to push it down and ignore the vampire blood on Alec's face, so close. All I have to do is reach up and lick it...

I bury my head in his shoulder to stop myself from thinking about it. I need to concentrate. How did I activate the warlock thing before? Reading warlock spells in Latin seems to do the trick, but I definitely don't have any of those around. Kissing Alec works too, but he's probably not in the mood and I can smell the vamp blood drying to his lips. Almost dying is another option, in theory, but then again my powers wouldn't work when I was getting munched on by junkies.

What good are freaky fucking powers if you can't use them when you need to?

With no options left, I try to imagine myself grabbing onto the power. It's completely weird and I'm ninety-nine percent sure it's not going to work, but it's worth a shot. I imagine the inside of my eyelids are a dark room and if I reach out, I can touch the warlock in me and make it do what I want. I open my eyes.

Double vision.

"Fucking yes!" I shout.

Alec spares a glance at me, confused, and I wink one pure black eye at him. Something is tugging in me. The power senses the vampires and wants nothing more than to exterminate them. For a moment, I see those green eyes again. For a moment, I know something isn't right with me. And then instinct overpowers all thought. I grab my arm and snap it back into place. It doesn't hurt one bit. I reach up, kiss Alec on the bloody cheek, and slip into nothingness.


	10. Gone

**Gone**

Alec looked down at his arms and stopped running.

Magnus had just been there, feather light and hurt, and now he was gone. Black smoke poured from Alec's arms and shot backwards towards the horde of vampires gaining on them. Strong arms grabbed him and pulled him forward; Jace. Dumbfounded, Alec grabbed his flip scythe out of his pants and popped it open, then continued running mechanically, trying to put the pieces of what had just happened together.

Magnus had winked at him, looking all black eyed and windswept and sexy. Alec could almost feel it in his own shoulder when Magnus relocated his arm. And then nothing. Black smoke, swirling away from him. Gone.

The tunnel opened up onto rusty stairs. Jace and Alec took them two at a time. When they got to the top, Jace tried to slam the door shut. "Magnus is still down there!" Alec shouted.

They stalled for a moment, Jace's hand frozen on the metal bar of the door. There was a horrendous scream and then another loud crash. Alec ignored Jace's warning and stuck his head out of the door. The stairs had fallen and the walls beneath him were soaked with blood. Black smoke surged up around him and Magnus stumbled out of it. He fell onto his hands and knees, vomiting. But the vampires were still coming. Alec could hear more of them pounding through the tunnel, screaming in outrage. No one had ever infiltrated their nest, it appeared.

"Come on, we have to go!" Jace urged, picking Magnus up off of the ground. He half dragged the glazed eyed warlock. Alec swept in underneath him, breathing a silent sigh of relief when Magnus was back in his arms.

And then they were running again, through the tangled, flooded mess of the abandoned New York subway lines.

XXX

It wasn't a nice feeling, being smoke. I hope I never have to do it again as we break out into the cold night. I never want to go underground again either.

I don't remember much of what happened. It was like something old and instinctual took over my body. The whole time I was alone in the tunnel, I could barely think. I certainly couldn't feel. It was like being everywhere and no where at the same time. And then I was dumped on the floor whole, feeling like I was going to pass out and finally letting myself puke.

Alec and Jace streak across the park to their bikes. They're exactly where we left them, though it feels like they should be covered in rust. How long were we done there? Three hours, at least. Alec all but throws me onto his bike and we explode into the night sky, Jace in tow. It doesn't feel like a roller coaster this time. Nothing can compare to the feeling of streaking through a bloodstained tunnel as smoke. Nothing.

We land on the roof of his building and Alec collapses onto his back, breathing hard. I fall off after him and sit down, leaning against the shed. Jace comes to a jerking stop and slides off his bike, the only one standing. And then the most insane thing happens. Alec snickers, Jace chuckles, and both of them start laughing hysterically. Like this whole thing wasn't fucking terrifying. Alec throws a hand over his eyes, tilting his head back. His laugh is contagious. I chuckle a little, resting my forehead on my knees.

Jace makes a loud whooping noise and Alec repeats it. I shake my head. They're both fucking insane. "We're alive!" Jace screams, leaning over the waist high concrete surrounding the roof of Alec's building. "You hear that, you fucking cocksucking blood freaks! We. Are. Not. Dead!" And then he looks at me. "I mean the vamps. No offense to the former prostitute."

I roll my eyes. "Some taken."

"Remember that Dravak demon in that alleyway?" Alec asks. "I think this beat it."

"Isabelle is going to be so pissed that we left her out of this." Jace sits on the edge of the roof, his legs swinging over the edge. "Seriously, she's going to rip my head off - And you!" He points at me. "What the fuck? That was awesome! How did you do that?"

I say, "Magic," because I'm pretty sure that's exactly how I did it.

Jace shivers and starts laughing again. "Jesus, I'm all angel'd up." He swings his legs back over onto our side of the barrier and walks over to his bike, stopping to pat Alec on the shoulder. "I should get back to the Institute... but I think I'm going to go tell Clary I'm alive first."

Clary? When he says her name, his voice melts like butter. It must be his girlfriend. Jace revs his engine and tears off the roof. I watch him fly off towards Brooklyn until he's just a dot in the sky and then look at Alec. He's staring at me.

He gets to his feet and comes to crouch beside me. "How's your ankle?"

My ankle? I remember how bad it hurt and lift the torn, bloody leg of my borrowed sweatpants. There's nothing. Drying blood, but no wound. I frown. "I feel fine..." And it's true. I could use a shower and some sleep, but I think I'm alright.

Alec offers me his hand and I take it. Relief floods over me and Alec turns a little red. "Come on, let's get cleaned up."

We climb into the elevator and I lean against Alec like I'm completely exhausted, but really I just want to be close to him. The lift stops a floor before Alec's apartment and a woman is standing there. She gapes at us, and I realize for the first time that we really do not belong in a ritzy Upper East Side apartment building. Alec is half naked and covered with the red blood of living vampires and the black blood of dead ones. My clothes are all torn up and smeared with my own blood. I smile at her. "Evening, ma'am."

She doesn't get in with us.

Alec laughs all the way into his apartment. At the door he peels off his shirt and I do the same. I take off the sweatpants too. It's all covered in vamp blood and that resolve that I showed in the nest is starting to waver. One lick does you a hell of a lot. I could get away with it. Alec wouldn't even know. "You should wash your face," I say.

He reaches his hand up and goes sheet white. Alec opens his mouth and feels inside with his fingers. "Shit! What if I swallowed some?"

I snort and shake my head. "You're fine, Alec." He hurries into the kitchen and I follow. Alec bends over the sink, finger down his throat. I speed over and grab his wrist. He fights against me. "Whoa, whoa, Alec relax! You don't need to do that. You didn't swallow any."

Alec lets his hand drop and we're standing there, awkwardly spooning shirtless over the sink. I back away. His whole body is shaking. Something is definitely wrong.

"Were we... too late?" The thought makes me furious. A chilly breeze sweeps over my skin and clatters the pots and pants hanging over the sink together. "Did that vamp...?"

Alec shakes his head and straightens up. "No, no. It's okay." He turns around, eyes watery. "Nothing happened."

I reach out and trace the curve of his ear with my fingertips, down to the corner of his jaw. There's a huge bruise on his face that I'm only noticing now under the harsh kitchen lights. "You can tell me."

"You used to do that," he whispers. "Not even a week ago, you used to do that. On purpose."

"Alec..." I trail off, unsure of what else to say. There's blood on my hands that will never wash clean.

His head shakes slightly, almost like a twitch. He looks so innocent and young under all of that scarlet. "I know I didn't know you, but I feel like... like I should have. Like I should have protected you."

I think of the junkies he killed with the scythe. He didn't even give them a second glance. There was something cold, like steel, in his eyes when he did it. It's terrifying and eye opening to think of. Alec isn't as innocent as he looks. If he had a conversation with one of them sober, would he feel the same way he feels about me? Am I really something special to him, or just something he wants to save? A stray brought in from the cold.

"Take a shower," I say. "You'll feel better when you're cleaned up."

Alec looks like he doesn't want to, but he pushes away from the counter regardless and slumps off to the shower. I wait in the kitchen for the water to turn off. He must have the world record for body cleaning because he's only in the shower for three minutes. Then he's back in the doorway in only a towel, dripping wet and fresh. I swallow. He notices. "Towels are in the cupboard over the toilet. Extra soap is under the sink." He lifts an eyebrow at my blatant ogling. "Is something wrong?"

I shake my head. "Definitely not."

Alec doesn't know what to say to that. He goes a little red, a smile playing on his lips. And then he's gone. I feel like I've been given a copy of a really good porn magazine, only to have it ripped away before I can fully appreciate it.

The shower feels glorious. I'm used to cleaning up in sinks with hand soap and zero pride. Shampoo - real shampoo. Not the shitty dry spray stuff. Sometimes I would steal bottles from stores, but most of the time I forgot and would just use extra gel. Or I wouldn't do anything at all. Hey, the giant dirty rats nest look worked on me. Unlike Alec, I take my time, appreciating warm water and and the softness of bar soap. When I get out, I feel like a new person. I grab a towel and sling it around my hips. The apartment is dark, the only light coming from Alec's bedroom. I saunter in, feeling more like myself than I have in years.

Alec is lying face down on the bed in a pair of plaid flannel pajama pants and a black t-shirt out of his abundant collection of identical black t-shirts. My box is at the foot of the bed. I rifle through it, wondering if I even have sleep clothes. Usually I would just pass out in my jeans. There's a miraculous pair of black and green Black Ops pajama pants at the bottom from when I was sixteen and obsessed with my PS3, right before everything went wrong. I put them on and then stare down at myself.

The last time I wore these I was shorter. I didn't have scars from being whipped and bitten. I didn't have a horrid tattoo on my throat. My chest had more muscle to it. I wasn't as gaunt or as tired looking. But they fit all the same and for a moment I can imagine I'm that kid again, looking out for a good time to escape the growing chaos at home. That terrible feeling that something is wrong with me comes back and I imagine my mom, her kind eyes - green like mine.

I push the thought away and crawl into bed.

Alec isn't asleep.

His eyes stare straight ahead, his left hand holding his throat. "He took off my pants, then he ripped the shirt right off of me," Alec says quietly. "And he punched me. For no reason. Just wanted to see me hurt."

The saddest part is that I consider that going gentle. "It's over. It's okay," I say. I don't know if I can touch him. He looks a little on edge.

"I've killed vampires before. Hundreds of them. But I've never touched one before. They're so... cold." He shivers and scoots closer to me, his face grave. Slowly, as if he's afraid I'll run away, he puts his arm around me and lays his head on my chest. My breath catches in my throat and I reach down to touch his hair. It's still wet. "You're really warm, you know."

I smile to myself. "You too."

"Can you answer a question for me?"

"Sure."

"Do you think people can ever really forgive themselves?"

The room falls silent. The light on Alec's side of the bed is turned on, but I don't think either of us are willing to break this embrace to correct the situation. Alec's breathing is even, moist and hot. Even though I'm sure he's near sleeping, I want to kiss him. But I'm too busy thinking about his question and what he could have done to make him ask it.

I run my knuckles down Alec's spine and he shudders. "I guess people forgive themselves when they know they're forgiven."

The arm around my ribs tightens and Alec takes a shaky breath. "I like your piercings," he says. "They're cool."

I look down at myself, having forgotten I even had any. Lip, nose, nipple, navel, eyebrow, cartilage, earlobe - yep, I have piercings. I'm one of those people you see on the street and wonder if they fell into a staple gun. I used to have one in my tongue too, but it was bad for business. It's easy to get an infection if you're too strung out to properly clean a bar of metal in your mouth. "Thanks."

"I always wanted an earring," he goes on. I have a feeling he's trying to make himself forget whatever had made him ask that question. "Just a stud. I thought it would look cool. I was going to do it when the staff left, but I keep chickening out."

"Because it hurts?"

"Because if my mom sees it she'll kill me." He laughs at himself. "And obviously what I think looks cool isn't what everyone else does. That's why everyone makes fun of my clothes."

I smile into his hair. He's still holding on to me, which begs the question of what I am to him. "I like your clothes. They give you character. And you'd look good with an earring. You should just go for it."

"Maybe I will."

Neither of us say anything else after that. Alec's breathing evens out again and he starts snoring a bit - and amazingly enough, it helps me fall to sleep myself. Maybe it's the rhythm of him inhaling and exhaling, or maybe it's just knowing that for once, someone is staying with me the night through.

* * *

><p><em>Next chapter is a lemon. Smiley face.<em>


	11. Awake

**Awake**

I dream that night. It's not a nightmare or blank stillness - it's a dream, full of colour and light and oddities that I can't begin to understand. Vampire blood has a tendency of taking away sleep and dreams usually go along with it.

First, I'm sitting at a table with my mother. It's like a little cafe, only it's in the middle of a lush garden and we're the only ones there. A waiter in coattails brings us tea and these little cookies my Aunt Nadia used to send over. My mother was so beautiful. In the dream, she looks exactly as I remember her. Her eyes are gently curved and her black hair is pulled up into her usual frazzled bun. Every line is in place from years of smiling. Her Saint Michael bracelet dangles from her wrist. My cranky old grandma got it for her right before she moved to America from the Philippines. It was supposed to keep her safe. Fat lot of good it did.

"Mom," I say, "I met a guy. He's really nice."

She smiles kindly at me. "I noticed. He seems nice enough."

I turn a little bit red. "I miss you, Mommy."

"I miss you to, Maggie."

"Then why did you do it?" My voice cracks and I cover it up by drinking my tea. It tastes like sunshine.

"It was an accident," she frowns. "My sweet little Maggie..." Her hand cups my face and it feels so real that I lean into it. "I shouldn't have left you. It was a mistake."

I hold my breath to keep from shouting at her and count down from ten. I don't want to be mad at my mother for what she did. "Why did you do it?"

"I was afraid. I was a coward."

"What were you afraid of?" My voice raises and her hand falls back. My heart pangs. "Mommy, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to - "

She shakes her head with a tired smile. "Maggie, enjoy your night. It's yours."

I haven't noticed the mist filling the garden. It's everywhere now, covering the table and swallowing up my mother. I reach out to her. She takes my hand, squeezes it, and lets go. Before I can be too upset, another figure emerges from the fog. It's Alec, in a white t-shirt and jeans with fake angel wings strapped to his back. I laugh, but he doesn't seem in the humorous mood. For a moment I think he's angry at me, the way those winged eyebrows are dipping down in the middle. When he reaches me, I put my hands up to defend myself. He grabs me around the waist and pulls me in to kiss me hard.

Hands in my hair, all over my body, under my shirt. He pushes me backwards and we land on sand, suddenly surrounded by a gorgeous beach. Alec runs his hands up my arms and whips my shirt over my head. I pull the wings off and toss them to the waves. The sand underneath us is wet and sticks to our skin. I rip Alec's pants open and he drags my fly down, painfully slow. A hand dives into my jeans and I groan. His lips make it hard for me to breathe, dropping lower and lower. Over my ribs, past my pierced belly button, to kiss the skin above my boxers. He holds my hips down so I can't fight his teasing.

"Alec, please," I whimper.

He obliges and pulls my pants and boxers off. I don't even have time to think. He springs back to my cock like nobody's business. I feel myself hit the back of his throat and my toes curl. He starts pumping. I look down and see his head bobbing. He pulls off and smiles at me. It's so absurdly innocent that I almost can't believe that's his hand running up and down my dick. He leans in and licks, long and even. My head falls back, my eyes clenched shut. He takes me into his mouth again and I almost scream.

Alec swallows, making a clicking sound at the back of his throat, and laughs at my reaction. I can't help but scream. It's a short burst, more like a strangled cry than anything, but it's enough to snap me out of the dream.

XXX

I'm awake, hard, and ashamed.

Alec luckily rolled away from me to turn off the light at some point. He's barely jostled when I bolt upright and then put my head in my hands, miserable. Not only did I just have a wet dream, but I didn't get to finish. I can't even look at Alec. I pick up my pillow, crawl out of bed, and take my walk of shame to sleep on the couch like the pathetic horny teenager I am.

"Magnus," Alec says.

It's so clear that I'm certain he's awake. I turn back to the bed, ready to explain that his snoring is bothering me or something else equally insulting to him. A wave of lust hits me like a brick wall. Swear to God, I stumble back from the force of it, my eyes out of focus. Alec isn't awake. Now that I look closely, he looks a bit sick. His forehead is sweaty and his whole body is shivering. A high, thin moan snakes its way between his lips. He rolls slightly so that he's lying in a patch of moonlight. Alec's fingers curl, his eyebrows scrunched together. His breathing is heavy. I can almost feel it against my skin.

Another wave of lust slams into my chest and I almost double over. My erection has gone from semi-annoying to a fucking emergency. I drop my pillow back onto the bed and hover over Alec, feeling glossy eyed and desperate. Alec's eyes flutter open and there I am, nearly panting on top of him. I expect him to be frightened. Instead, he grabs onto me and pulls me down on top of him. Our lips melt together, our tongues tied in knots. He wraps his legs around my waist and shudders as I make a grab at his ass. His shirt slides up and he wriggles it off. We roll over it in our mad dash to touch each other.

"Magnus," he murmurs. No one ever says my name. I want to hear it again. I arch my back inwards and lick one of his nipples before biting it and tugging, light but firmly. He gasps and stutters, "M-Magnus." I lick the other one and squeeze his butt again, unintentionally pushing his erection against my hip. Alec grabs onto my back and his fingers scratch a little bit. Oh, so he's one of those then. "_God_."

Then the world seems to crash down around me. Alec pushes me away, his face red. I fall to the side willingly, though my stomach is churning. What was I even thinking? Who would want to have sex with a whore? He probably thinks I have magical vampire STD's or something - which don't exist, contrary to popular belief. Alec bites his lip and then pushes himself up so he's on his knees. His hand dips down and his fingernails scrape gently against my chest. I shiver. Yes, he's definitely a scratcher.

"When's the last time you... _did it_ without getting hurt?" he asks me.

Colour floods my face. "When I was sixteen," I answer after a long pause. "It was with a girl."

"And... how many people would you say you've... you know...?" He leaves it open ended, averting his eyes.

My stomach feels sick now. "I don't know."

"Just count humans."

Why would the humans matter? "Two." And that's the honest answer.

If he's surprised, he hides it well. "I'm... I'm not a virgin." His Adam's apple bob's. "I just thought you should know that. If we're going to. You know."

"Have sex?" I ask with a snicker. Alec looks like he's been scandalized. Whatever. He was definitely having a sex dream about me a minute ago. A bit of a weird coincidence. I'm starting to wonder if that dream about the beach was a consequence of his own dream. What if we were having the same dream? What if he can actually suck cock like that? Whoa, Magnus, down boy. "Your misplaced V-card is duly noted. I'm not exactly one to judge, love."

"Love?" He smirks. "I adore how you talk sometimes."

"I _adore_ how you do a lot of things," I admit. The moment I say it I feel completely exposed. It's the truth, full and simple.

Alec rolls his eyes. He puts his hands on either side of my head and lowers his own so that we're almost touching. He gives me that smile - the innocent one that doesn't strike me as so innocent anymore - and then inches closer so that he's kissing me, though our lips barely touch. His hand roams down to my upper thigh and he starts massaging it so intensely that I whimper.

Alec pulls back, surprised. "Sorry! Did I hurt you?" And then he goes on babbling, flustered, "I swear I don't know my own strength. Sometimes when I'm holding cups and stuff and they just break. It's why I never touch babies. That, and they leak a lot..."

My heart stutters when I process what he said. Five words. He probably didn't even give them a second thought. But it wasn't just, "Did I hurt you?" What that really said was "Did I hurt you? Because I don't want to. Seeing you in pain doesn't make me happy." And that's all I've ever wanted to hear. I grab the back of his neck and surge upwards to meld our lips together. He starts massaging my thigh again and I sigh happily. Alec breaks away and kisses my throat as I wrap my left leg around him and try to pull him closer. His eyes flutter and his lashes tickle my throat. When I laugh, he looks up at me was a sheepish smile.

So perfect.

Eyes still trained on my face, Alec runs his knuckles over my erection with a surprisingly bold amount of pressure. I can't help but arch my back at the feeling, trying to get more. Whatever amount of control Alec has had on his emotions cracks in that moment. I feel it shatter, the shards like tiny pinpricks against my skin, making everything so sensitive. Alec attacks my chest with hot, wet kisses and I hold onto his hair to keep him going. He catches my nipple ring with his bottom lip and I suck in a hiss. He does it again, rolling his hips into mine. A sharp wind tears through the room as I roll Alec onto his back and pull at the drawstring of his pajama's with shaky fingers. He's doing the same thing to me and we seem to lose our clothes at the same time.

Before Alec can do anything, I slide down his chest, over the hard muscles of his stomach, to his cock. It goes slightly above the general expectation for what a dick should be - not too huge, not too small. Perfectly average for someone of his build, except for some reason I can't help but think it's simply wonderful. Maybe it's because for the first time I'm not seeing a human sex organ meant for the express purpose of being pleasured for a reward, but as a part of Alec - a part of someone who makes my heart feel like it's about to burst. I roll his pants down over his knees and he kicks them off the rest of the way, staring at me self consciously.

I kiss his hipbone and gently wrap my hand around him. He makes a noise that reminds me of a squeaky toy being stepped on and then lets out a staggered breath. I trace my hand up and down, slowly, still kissing his hips, the tops of his thighs, the dip right next to, but not touching his cock. He's going insane, fingers knotted in the sheets. I finally decide to give him what he wants and lick him. Slow, even, with hardly any pressure.

"Magnus," he wheezes. "Please."

I give in and take all of him at once. He yelps and I pull back up, only to do it again. Whatever he's had before, I don't think it's comparable to me. He has this strange look of surprise, like what's happening to him is completely new. Maybe he was lying about having sex to impress me. Or maybe I'm not the only one with a completey fucked up sexual history. The way he's writhing on the bed, pulling at my hair and then holding on to the pillow beside him, I know it won't be long until he's finished. So I stop doing one of the things I'm best at, despite his protests of, "Fuck, Magnus, please. Just a little bit more." I silence him with a kiss and we're rolling again, so that he's on top of me.

"Are you a top or a bottom?" I ask.

He blushes just a little and yet another wave of pure sexual desire rains over me. I can't catch my breath for a moment. It's like the high of vamp blood multiplied by ten - all I want to do is fuck and be fucked. I try not to groan because I don't think Alec is supposed to know I can feel how horny he is, but I can't hold it back. He goes even redder and obliges me for a moment, timidly grabbing my cock and giving a few wonderful, clumsy pumps. We meet eyes and he swoops in to nip the tip of my nose, smiling.

"Top," he says huskily. "Is that going to be a problem?"

My eyes roll back a little. Is it how his voice sounds or the way he's holding me, tight, possessive and yet gentle? "No problem. Not even a little bit."

Alec laughs his nice, light laugh. Nothing hidden, nothing dark. He just finds me funny. God, do I want to jump him. He pulls away again and I pout. He keeps breaking contact with me. Jesus, how are we going to have sex if he's always halfway across the bloody room? "Shit, I don't have any of that... stuff."

It's my turn to laugh. He's a prude and it's adorable. I roll up onto my knees, kissing his cheek, and then crawl over to my cardboard suitcase. After a moment of ruffling, I find a bottle of lube. Most vamps don't even consider using it, so I used to carry some around. It never made much of a difference, really, so the bottle is still mostly full. Alec refuses to look at it. He's a bit like a twelve year old that way. It's a shock when he swipes the bottle from me and pushes me back down lightly. I stare up at him, towering over me, face in shadows, and for a moment I'm certain that I should be scared. Some of the worst moments of my life have involved sex, and yet I'm perfectly fine with Alec.

For a moment I think it's love.

For a moment I think it's him controlling my emotions.

And then he pops the cap and starts slicking his fingers and his cock and I couldn't give less of a fuck if I tried.

"All those men in that nest," Alec murmurs as he begins stroking me again, "and I bet none of them cared about you feeling good. I want to make you feel good." He gives his wrist a quick jerk. When I moan I think of omelets and how I'll never eat them without a stiff one again. "I want to make you feel so good. Is that what you want too, Magnus?"

I lick moisture off of my top lip and rock my hips in time with Alec's pumping. "Please do. I want you to. I want you to make me feel amazing." I feel his other hand start to prep me. It's uncomfortable at first, but I'm used to it. Alec keeps saying the most amazingly sweet and sexy things in my ear. About how he wants me to be happy, how he can't look at me without wanting to make love to me. Not fuck. Not have sex. _Make love_. It's enough to make my toes curl even before he puts his cock in me.

When he does, I don't know what to think. I can't remember it ever feeling this good. It's less like I'm submitting to the will of someone stronger and more like I'm the second half of a complicated puzzle. I belong in the equation as an equal part, being brought as much pleasure as I give. And damn, am I receiving some pleasure. Alec's control over his emotions begins to falter again. I can't help but feel just how much he wants me, and how much he wants this. He pulls my hair and it hurts, but in the good way. I forgot about things hurting in the good way. Where he touches me, his fingers dig in. The backs of my thighs and my shoulders, mostly. And the neck kissing! _Unf_. Alec is one of those people who loves a good throat. He kisses and sucks and bites. The juxtaposition is almost palpable.

But the best part is my name. "_Magnus. Magnus. God, Magnus, you're so tight. You're so beautiful. Magnus, Magnus, fuck, Magnus, fuck!_" It's music to my ears. I can just hear it over my own whimpering and moaning. I can't help it. Alec may not be practiced, but it's the first times anyone's tried to make me feel good in what seems like forever. And he's good. He may not be a connoisseur of fucking, but he definitely knows how to make a guy feels like he matters.

I stop him once to put my ankle over his shoulder. He looks at me like I'm an acrobat and I roll my eyes. I've always wondered what this felt like with a gentler hand. Alec thrusts once and I lose all of my breath. In one move he manages to hit my sweet with enough force to make my eyes water. "Fuck Magnus, are you alright?"

I laugh roughly. "Better than alright. Do that again." He repeats a couple of times in a row. My spine melts, my eyes roll. I need more. "Don't stop," I pant. "Please don't stop."

He doesn't stop, laughing at my expression. Mutual laughter during sex - one of my biggest turn on's. I don't think Alec fully understands what he's doing to me. I'm losing my shit faster than ever before. My climax is getting closer and closer and I'm terrified that I'm going to humiliate myself and finish long before him. So I start pulling out all of the stops. I scream a little bit, grab his ass and beg him to go faster, harder - I say some of the dirtiest things I can think of without freaking him out. "Oh, Alec, fuck me, please. I love it when you bite me. God, I _need_ it." All of it seems to be doing something. His skin is flushing and he's looking at me with the sort of longing that can only be solved by crawling inside someone's skin. I can feel how horny he is in every fiber of my being, but I need to make him want to orgasm.

I shut my eyes and force him to roll onto his back. We're both still for a moment, Alec probably wondering what he did wrong. What he did to make me sit there, statue still, with the back of my hand over my eyes. I open them when I think I'm ready and it works. Everything is in double. Alec gapes at me. Was he serious about thinking my black eyes were sexy? Did he even say they were sexy?

My skin prickles. Another wave of that barely contained need. Suddenly I don't know where my emotion ends and his begins. I smirk at Alec, keeping my eyes on his golden face, as I start to push myself off of his lap. I put my hands on his shoulders and begin bouncing. Alec grabs my waist, helping me along. It's hard to avoid looking at my clawed hands. I look right into Alec's eyes, hoping that that will fight off the revulsion. It works better than I expect. His fingernails scrape over my hips and down my legs.

Alec surges upwards off of the bed when I laugh. He grabs my hair and forces our mouths together. Wherever he touches is like fire - sparks setting me completely ablaze. I wrap my arms around him, holding on tighter than I ever have before. He buries his head in my neck, kissing and breathing heavily. "Alec," I gasp. "You're driving... me crazy."

He makes a noise of agreement and continues his kissing. I know he's not going to last long by how shaky and wild his thrusting is becoming. He nips at my throat once more and my toes curl. I finally force him to lay back down. The room has basically turned into a tornado, papers flying around everywhere. Alec's hair is whipping all around his sweat-soaked face. He reaches out and takes my cock into his hand, trying to speed me along towards the finish line with him.

My eyes cross a little and roll back into my head, my mouth opening. I hold onto Alec's shoulders for dear life as I cum full force all over his stomach. I don't know if he is just as close as I was or if seeing me get my release causes him to as well, but Alec orgasms mere moments after me. His head is thrown back, the muscles in his throat tight. His eyes slam shut and he makes this loud choking noise, biting his bottom lip.

I want to remember that face always. That's the look of someone who deserves pleasure, who deserves to be happy.

We ride out our orgasms and then I collapse onto his left side. I wrap my arms around him, breathing heavily. Alec rolls on top of me, caging me in his arms. He smiles down at me with those slightly crooked teeth and those gorgeous blue eyes.

"This isn't a dream, right?" he asks innocently.

I kiss him lightly on the lips. "Nope."

"Good," he says. "I think I should go take a shower. Isabelle likes to show up insanely early, unannounced."

I look down and my ears go hot. I'm pretty sure the last thing his sister needs to see is a male prostitute covered in her brother's jizz. "Mind if I join you?"

He hops off the bed. "Not at all."


	12. Scars

_The shower scene will be posted as an extra on my Tumblr some time this week. www . motheatenmittens . tumblr . com . _**  
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**Scars**

Sunlight pours in through the blinds directly into my eyes.

I open them, unhappy and sore. The bed next to me is empty, the sheets all rumpled. I feel oddly abandoned for a moment before last night rushes back to me. Wet skin, rushing water, gasping laughter. Grabbing onto the shower curtain and almost falling onto the floor. My neck is sore. I probably have a solid ring of hickeys from the way Alec was biting and sucking last night. Jesus, he must have caught some sort of tooth fetish from the nest.

I sit up, rolling my shoulders. I'm in a towel, my hair still damp where it was against the pillow. Yawning, I stretch my arms, ready to drop back down and fall asleep for another hour or seven. No such luck. The door flies open and Alec is there, panicked.

"Jesus Christ, get dressed!" he nearly screams, and then slams the door shut.

I jump out of bed and force on some of my clothes, even though Alec's are so much comfier. A t-shirt for a band I've never seen and plaid pants covered with holes all the way up the thighs. Before I leave the room I grab one of Alec's sweaters. It doesn't cover the extent of the bruising, but it's a hell of a lot better than my v-neck. It only takes a moment to hunt down Alec. His apartment might be huge, but he's got to be the world's noisiest cook.

When he looks at me, his eyes are huge. "Isabelle and Max are on their way up. Pretend like we didn't have sex."

I take one of the stools and lift my eyebrows at him. "Is this convincing enough?"

He stops and looks me over critically. "You're too smug." I try making an unsmug face. "That's better."

"Just relax," I sigh. "If the hickeys don't give it away, my face sure as hell won't."

His eyes dip to the broken blood vessels and his mouth falls open. "Oh my God!" he nearly shrieks. "Isabelle is going to know." Alec puts his head in his hands, spins on his heel, and then slams his head on the counter. If it didn't sound so painful, I would think it a ballet move.

"Will she really mind that much?" What does it matter to her, anyways? She's spent an hour with me. Not exactly enough time to pass judgement on someone, whether they're a junkie or not.

Former junkie, Magnus. Things have changed.

"It's not that," he says, rubbing his forehead. Alec sighs, walks around the counter, and gently pulls the neck of my borrowed sweater down. He hisses in between his teeth. "I'm sorry."

I take his hand and pull it away. "It's okay," I say. I reach up and kiss him. He remains completely still, his eyes half open. I pull away, about to say "I've had worse." Instead I say, "I wasn't exactly complaining when you were doing it."

He turns red, chuckles and looks to the side.

The front door to his apartment opens.

Alec twirls around, back rigid. I expect Isabelle to saunter into the room. Instead, a little boy in a narrow wheelchair comes shooting around the corner. He pulls to an abrupt halt in front of Alec, beaming. "Hey! I wanted to visit you yesterday, but Jace said you had to go on a mission and I wasn't allowed to tell Isabelle so now she's really mad at you. Who's that?"

The kid pushes his glasses up, scrutinizing me. "Max, this is Magnus. Magnus, this is Max - my little brother."

"Hi Max," I say with a smile. I'm not the biggest fan of children, but Max looks a lot like Alec. They have the same messy hair and giant eyes.

He gives me a dubious look. "Isabelle said you were a bad guy. Why are you here?"

"Max!" Alec cries.

Isabelle chooses that moment to saunter around the corner. "I said he was a Blood Whore. I never said he was a bad guy." She takes the seat next to me, her eyes going immediately to my throat. They go dark for a minute. She meets my gaze, glaring. "So how was the nest?"

Alec shrugs, looking flustered. He pulls a jug of milk out of the fridge and pours us all a glass. "It went alright."

"Really? Jace said you all almost died."

"Details," I shrug.

Max wheels over to the little table by the window, staring at me the whole way. "What's for breakfast?" Max asks.

Alec says, "Omelet's."

I choke on my milk. The most innocent of egg based breakfast foods, reduced to a sexual innuendo that only I'm aware of. Isabelle and Alec give me twin looks of confusion. Max laughs.

"Sorry," I say. "Went down the wrong way."

Alec meets my eyes and can't hold back a smile. I can't stop myself from returning it and as far as Isabelle is concerned, we're screwed.

Her face goes cold. "Jace said he overheard Dad talking about Sebastian."

Something changes in the air immediately. It's like all of the warmth is sucked out of the room. Alec's hand is holding the spatula so hard that the metal starts to bend. "What?" he spits.

She takes a slow breath. "They think he might be back stateside, but they don't know for sure."

Alec's eyes flicker over toward Max, who doesn't seem to care about the conversation at all. He's doing one of Alec's Sudoku puzzles. "New York?"

"West Coast, they think. Dad said something was weird about the whole deal. The Inquisitor was holding information, I'm pretty sure."

The chill slowly fades. Alec turns away to calm down and I'm left wondering who the fuck Sebastian is. I don't know what it is that connects it, but I keep thinking of what Alec said last night. "I'm... I'm not a virgin." For the first time I think about it. About who he would have slept with, locked up in his tower, hidden away from the world. And the way he said it... If I'm remembering it correctly, he wanted to say something more after it. He was going to say something else, but he changed his mind at the last moment.

I mull this over through breakfast. Max talks ten miles a minute. He asks me so many questions and I can't answer half of them. The little brat is only ten - he doesn't need to know whether or not the bruises are from getting bitten by vampires. After breakfast, Isabelle says they need to go. She shoots one final glare at me and then grabs Max's chair and pushes him down the hall at mach ten.

The door closes and Alec sighs in relief. He sits down in his chair, looking like he's just run a marathon.

I take the couch and pretend to look through one of his books. When the silence is sufficiently awkward, I ask, "Who's Sebastian?"

Alec's knuckles go white. The room gets a little colder. No, not colder - tenser. Alec is so furious he's making me angry. "He took my heart, ate it, and spat it back in my face." Alec swallows convulsively and then promises, "He's going to die for it very, very soon."

"You put a death warrant out on him for dumping you?" My heart is racing. This side of Alec is making me uncomfortable, scared even.

He shakes his head stiffly. "Sebastian," he says the name like it's something foul, "moved in across the hall when I was sixteen. He told me he loved he. He made me feel like I mattered. But it was all so he could get close to Jace."

"Is Jace even gay?" I ask.

Alec laughs, and for once it's not a nice sound. "He didn't want Jace - he wanted Jace's head on a platter. Sebastian turned out to be Jonathon, Jace's half brother from his fucked up family back in the Nephilim country, Idris. He used me to get into our home. To get Jace all alone. When I found out..." Alec goes quiet, the fury fading. "I don't really remember it. My powers went berserk. I... I made him throw himself out a window. Max... He didn't know what was happening. He just heard all of the noise and came running. Jace tried to get him to stop, but he got hit so hard... with my anger..." Alec's voice cracks and he takes a deep breath. "He fell backwards. There was a staircase and... and his spine..."

"What about Sebastian? Shouldn't he have died?"

Alec is grateful at the change of subject. "We all thought he was dead, but his body went missing from our morgue and he's been spotted all over the place. Half of the Nephilim don't believe the story about him being Jace's half brother. His half brother supposedly died when he was a baby. They think I tried to kill Sebastian Carstairs - a Nephilim orphan from China." Talking about what happened is making Alec upset. I can feel his misery crawling over my skin, but I know that no amount of empathy will make my words matter. "The whole situation is fucked up, and I just made it all worse. It's a gift of mine," he snorts. "I'm the king of fucking up."

"Want me to defend my title?"

Alec stands up. "One second, I'll go get the liquor."

The clock says it's ten in the morning. Neither of us cares. Alec comes back with a decanter of brandy because he is one classy son of a bitch. We both take a glass. It doesn't sit well with my eggs, but it's extremely complimentary to my mood.

"Okay, so what's your sob story?" he asks.

I take a big gulp and reposition myself. "Okay, so before all this - " I wave to my pants and my piercings and the hickeys covering my cross tattoo - "I was your basic high school art freak. All I ever did was draw and play video games and lie about sleeping with girls, all the while wishing I was in the quarterback's bed. You know, that whole boring hat trick. Then one day I came home and found this note on the fridge, under this little plastic daisy magnet with a picture of me and my parents in it..." That picture is at the bottom of the box. I avoided looking at it when I went through my stuff. It just hurt too much. "The note said something like, 'Maggie, I love you. I'm sorry. Forgive me. Call the police and tell them to come into my room.' So what else could I do? I went into her room."

I have to force myself to stop talking and take another drink. Alec puts his hand on my knee and I smile at him, feeling older than I should.

"She was just lying there, like she was sleeping only her body was too still. There was a bottle of pills beside the bed - they were my fucking anti-depressants. The ones I started taking when my nightmares about my Dad getting hit by that car became too much." My body starts shaking so hard that I have to set my glass down. Thinking about it makes me want to escape my skin. Alec's hand is like an anchor, holding me to earth. "I never knew she was unhappy. She was always so bright and cheery. She could outshine the motherfucking sun, that woman. But... she killed herself. And I never stopped feeling guilty because it was my poison that did it."

"That was unfair," Alec says. "She shouldn't have done that to you. Any of it."

I shake my head. The next part is decidedly easier to talk about. It's not about feeling, but about facts. I don't want to think about my Mother's death. I would rather think about my mistakes. "I lived in a group home for about a week. They were talking about me moving in with my grandparent's, and there was no way I was moving to the goddamn Philippines. I just wanted to stop feeling so much. I snuck out, went to this really shady club in the Village. I think I was looking for sex because sex, in my general sixteen year old opinion, made me happy. This guy picked me up. He looked like a movie star. We went to the bathroom and he vamped out. I could have ran away, but I didn't. He told me to go to Shakespeare's Garden the next night. That he wanted me to come see some things. I was fucked out of my brains, so I said yes. I went. He took me to the nest. Beat the shit out of me. Raped me. Stole my Metro Card, the bastard. And then he sent me on my merry way."

Alec's face is stony, but I can sense that what I'm telling him is a lot more upsetting to him than he lets on.

"I could have never gone back. But the blood made me forget that I was all alone in the world, so I ended up in the Garden again. Ended up getting chained to a wall and whipped. All those scars on my back... I only got them over the past couple of years. After that, they sent me out of the nest again. I could have gotten away for a third fucking time. But I didn't. I went back. That was when Raphael saw me." His name is like acid on my tongue. There was a time when I would have given him the moon if he asked me. Now I wouldn't give him the scum off my teeth. "He told the other vamps to fuck off. He said that I didn't deserve to be beaten. I was too special. He said I was one of his pets. That was the night I moved away from the group home. They found my empty bed, all of my stuff gone, and a note to my grandparent's saying I was sorry. For about a month he treated me like I was someone special. He gave me all new clothes and got me braces to fix my crossbite. He taught me how to fuck. And then one night a bunch of his men came into my room in the nest. They held me down and marked me." I touch the tattoo gently. I can still feel the ghost of the pain it caused me. "Then they made me get dressed, dragged me out to some dump in Queens, and let this perv vampire cut me with a set of car keys and then pound me until I threw up."

Alec's white as a sheet. "Oh God, Magnus..."

I touch his face gently. "On the way out, I saw a woman I knew. She was my art teacher. I could have screamed for help. I didn't. I never asked for help. Not once. Even when Raphael made it clear that I was nothing to him but a whore, I still wouldn't try to escape." I look down at my feet, ashamed. "Even now, if he walked through that door and told me to go with him, I don't know if I would be able to say no."

"Why?" he asks hoarsely. "You're away from all that now. You don't have to go back."

I run my hand through his hair. "I'm not saying I'm going back. It's just... Raphael... When he wants someone, he has them."

Alec puts the glass to his lips and drains it. I want to make him feel better. I want to tell him it's all alright, but that's not true. Not entirely. Raphael still wants me dead, Alec is still in exile, Sebastian is still at large, and I still can't remember what I did for those three days before I ended up in that alleyway in the cold. I open my mouth to mention that to Alec, realizing that I haven't told him yet, but then I stop. I get this weird feeling in the pit of my stomach - this premonition - that I shouldn't talk about it.

"So the King of Fucking Up remains Magnus Bane," I grin, pretending to put a crown on my head.

Alec rolls his eyes and stands up. "Come on," he says.

I follow him to the door and out into the hall. "Where are we going?" He calls for the elevator. We go up.

"You'll see."

It's cold outside. It must be late October. I don't really pay attention to the months - only the seasons. Alec pulls open the door to the shed and I watch his muscles flex under his black t-shirt. The cold doesn't seem to bother him.

"What if someone actually needs something from the shed?" I ask as he wheels out his motorcycle.

Alec laughs. "No one ever comes up here. And if they try to garden, that makes sure they forget what they were doing." He points to the mark above the door. It's hard for me to look at.

Alec hops onto his motorcycle and waits for me to get on it with him. It's broad daylight - someone's bound to notice us. But I don't really care. If Alec says it's alright, it must be alright. I get on the bike and we go tearing off into the sky. I hold on tighter now that I can see everything. The city doesn't look like a reflection of the sky anymore - it looks like a shit ton of hard fucking concrete that will turn me into a pancake if Alec screws up. I refuse to close my eyes because it's all so amazing - like I'm a panning shot of New York in a movie.

Alec swerves through buildings and roars down over the Hudson River. We get so close that my boots get wet. I bury my face in his shoulder, my stomach fluttering. For a moment I'm not Magnus Bane the prostitute. I'm Magnus Bane the sixteen year old kid, hurtling through the air on the back of a gorgeous guy's motorcycle. It's amazing. It's fantastic. It's everything I could have imagined.

Alec bounds back over Manhattan, rocketing upwards at an 80 degree angle. I feel myself slipping and he pulls one of his hands off the bars to hold me in place. We level out and then shoot down. My eyes are watering like crazy, my voice hoarse from screaming. Alec picks up speed as we come closer to the Brooklyn Bridge. I grab onto his shirt and scream, "WATCH OUT!"

He pulls up. The wheels of the motorcycle hit the top of the support towers. Alec slams on the breaks and we jerk to a halt right on the edge. I almost pass out. Alec laughs. My eyes are frozen shut as Alec helps me off the bike. There's no way I'm opening them. I don't like heights anymore. I don't think I ever really liked them, but I definitely hate them now.

Alec's breath is hot on my ear. "Look."

I shake my head. "No fucking way am I opening my fucking eyes you fucking crazy ass driving motherfucker _no_."

He rubs my shoulders. I can feel his grin against my cheek. "Open your eyes."

I peep one open, meaning to shut it again and demand we go home. I see the bright blue sky, a sliver of buildings, and the crisp colour of autumn leaves in the distance. That's enough to make me open both. Alec's face hovers right above the gorgeous view, but it's less like he's obstructing it and more like it's adding to him. He still has terrible hair, but he's so beautiful, both inside and out, that it doesn't matter. I want to draw him. For the first time in years I want to draw.

Alec is smug. "Pretty cool, huh?"

I make a face at him. "Not worth becoming paste, but yes - it's very nice." More than nice. It's amazing.

Alec sits down, swinging his legs off of the edge. "Isabelle and Jace do their best to visit me, but there's only the two of them and they have a lot of Clave work to do. So whenever I get... lonely," he has to force the word out, "I come up here and look at all of the people."

I sit beside Alec and look down. It makes me dizzy and for an insane moment I consider jumping, just to see what it feels like. There are thousands of people beneath us, completely ignorant to our existence. "It's not fair," I say softly. "You don't deserve to feel lonely. Ever."

"I don't think anyone does," Alec frowns.

He looks from my hand to my face, eyes finally dipping down to my lips. His mouth quirks up at the corner. Alec covers my hand with his. Slowly, he leans in and our lips touch for the barest moment. That insane thought pops up again. I want to pull away and say the Big Three, but I can't. It's impossible and stupid. So instead I kiss him back, featherlight and sweet like honey.

I remember something abstract that a long lost friend said. Her name was Michelle and we had been sitting in a little diner in Brooklyn. She had a copy of Flowers for Algernon in her beat up knapsack and I asked her if it was a love story. She explained it while I sketched the salt shaker on the back of a menu. About how the main character fell in love, only to lose the girl when he became too smart, and then again when his intelligence began to leave. "No good love story ends happily," she said with a depressing amount of finality.

I push the memory down, knowing full well that anything Alec and I have will be difficult, if it's even real to begin with. If we lived in a perfect world, free of vampires and debt and exile, would we even be here now? And is this feeling in my heart even real? I keep trying not to think of it, but it nags at me. A lot of things I ignore nag at me.

Alec pulls away, cheeks pink. The way the sun is hitting his eyes makes them look like water, deep enough to swim in. Apparently it's doing something similar to mine. "I've never seen someone have eyes as green as yours. They're like leaves."

I snort. "Thanks."

"No, really," he says excitedly. "When you came out of that club it was the first thing I saw. Your eyes."

For the first time it really occurs to me that Alec was behind that club that night. "What were you doing there anyways?"

Alec thinks for a moment, and the fact that he has to think about it worries me. "I was bored, so I went vampire hunting," he admits, but there's something strange about the way he says it. Like he's said it a million times before. I push that away. It's probably nothing. "They usually hang around clubs, but all of the lights and the music made my head... They made my - my... I..." Alec's eyes glaze over and his mouth opens a little. My heart starts hammering in my chest because I can feel that something is wrong. Alec meets my eyes and grabs my wrist. "I was running. I can run really fast, but they were faster. They pushed me down before I could get to the shed. They made me think things..." Alec looks green. He holds his head in his hands. "This isn't right. I'm not remembering things right. I'm not remembering what happened."

"Alec, calm down," I order him. He's getting so freaked out and it's leaching into me. I can feel my pulse in my toes. "Calm down. Think it through. What aren't you remembering exactly?"

Alec scoots back from the edge and puts his head between his knees. "It was a Thursday. I was watching The Office. I watch The Office every Thursday. And I heard Isabelle come in. Only she smelled weird. She... She smelled like lilacs. Isabelle hates lilacs." He takes a deep shuddering breath. "Then I was on the roof. And then I was in the alley. It's all broken up, like I was... drunk or something."

"Let's go back home. Maybe you can remember better if you're home."

He nods and we get back on the motorcycle. Alec doesn't swerve or dip or anything like that. It's a straight shot to the roof, then a quick elevator ride down to his apartment. He sits on the couch, back stiff, and chugs down another glass of brandy. I make us sandwiches, but he doesn't eat his. I think of telling him just how much I've forgotten, but Alec isn't listening. His eyes are all glassy, like he's a million miles away. He finally says he needs to take a nap and think it all over. He goes into his bedroom and, with nothing else to do, I flick on his flat screen and doze off to Friends reruns, unaware of the mess waiting for me when I wake up.


	13. Remember

**Remember  
><strong>

I jolt up. It's night time. Alec's apartment is dark, light from the stars and the city flooding in through the giant windows. Most of them are open, the wind blowing all of Alec's books and papers around. It's freezing cold, my breath causing puffs of white. The TV is still on, muted. It casts a Technicolor glow over the living room. The bottle of brandy beside me is nearly empty from my incessant nipping at it. My head hurts. I get up, feeling stiff, and make my way to the bathroom.

There's a dark figure in the hallway, standing completely still, wrapped in shadow. It takes me a moment to notice that whoever it is, they're too tall to be Alec.

I start backing away instinctively. The figure cocks its head and starts stalking me down the hallway. I turn and full out run, trying to make it to the door. The phone starts ringing right when the vampire slams into me. I fly into the door and hit my head. My vision goes gray and the vampire wraps its hands around my throat. I scream Alec's name and the vampire presses harder.

The bedroom is silent.

Terror rips through my heart. Alec is dead, I think. The vamp killed him to get to me. The world shudders and I see everything in blue and black. My hands grab the vampires face and I pour every bit of fear and hurt into him. He crawls off of me and I gasp for air. Invisible whips lash his skin to shreds. I don't know how to care about what I've done. I jump over him, speeding down the hall to Alec. The door slams open with enough force to knock the hideous picture of that angel to the floor. Alec is unconscious, lying limp in the arms of a vamp. He stands on the edge of a smashed out window, the moonlight turning his red hair to pale flames.

"You want him?" the vamp growls. "You come to the nest. Face Raphael's wrath like a man and this sweet little _angel's_ torture will end."

And then he steps out into nothingness. Darkness overtakes him. I run to the window and will myself to turn into smoke, but it just won't work. I can't force myself to do magic. I just don't know how. Alec is gone. I have nothing left.

I sit down in the broken glass, feeling hollowed out. Dead. Worthless. I did this to him. I got him caught up in this mess. Sweet Alec and his omelets.

The phone stops ringing and Isabelle's panicked voice comes screeching out of the answering machine. "Alec, pick up the fucking phone! Jonathon or Sebastian or whatever the fuck his name is went to the Clave. He told them that you tried to murder him with your powers. They're calling an Inquiry. It's convening at midnight. Alec, the Inquisitor wants to sentence you to death. Did you hear that? They want to kill you! You have to run before they can bring you in. I'm coming over right now."

But she won't find Alec. She'll find a smashed window, a dead vamp, and the note that I need to write. I grab a pen off of Alec's nightstand and rip a piece of paper out of one of his books.

_Isabelle, Raphael the Blood Lord took Alec. I'll get him back for you and make sure he knows to hide. I'm so fucking sorry. -M_

I stare at the note for a moment. It's scribbled in bold over a section of Paradise Lost. I can't help but read the poetry beneath my note. It seems fitting that I would choose a page about nonexistence to write some of what I my last words on.

_And that must end us, that must be our cure,  
>To be no more. Sad cure; for who would lose,<br>Though full of pain, this intellectual being,  
>Those thoughts that wander through eternity,<br>To perish rather, swallowed up and lost  
>In the wide womb of uncreated Night,<br>Devoid of sense and motion? And who knows,  
>Let this be good, whether our angry foe<br>Can give it, or will ever? How he can  
>Is doubtful; that he never will is sure.<em>

It takes me a minute to figure that 'our angry foe' is the devil and that the whole thing seems to point to him not just letting us be nothing, but forcing us to suffer in hell. Well, I don't give a fuck about hell. I've already been to hell. I don't see how it can get much worse. This is hell, knowing that someone I care so much about is suffering because of something I don't even remember doing. Knowing that no matter what I do, I can't fix everything for him. Even if I save him from the nest, I can't save him from his own people.

No, I'm not afraid of hell. I'm afraid of the fucked up world I live in.

I stick the note to the fridge with a magnet and search Alec's room for his backpack of knives that I don't know how to use. It's way heavier than I thought, but I keep all of them in there. I'm not going to use them, but Alec will need them to get out.

I come out of the bedroom, feeling ready for death, just as the door opens. The light in the hallway is dim, so I can only see Isabelle's outline. She shakes out her long hair and leans against the doorway. I freeze as the overpowering scent of her hair snakes its way through the hallway to me.

"Magnus," she says.

I drop the backpack. That voice. I know her. My whole mind seems to jog forwards at five-thousand miles an hour.

"Feeling forgetful?" she smirks.

I close my eyes. It hurts like a bitch, like everything is coming together at once. I can see the fucking curvature of the Earth. The framed photos of Alec and his siblings fall off of the walls, glass shattering. Am I making everything shake like this? Apparently. The pain washes in, and washes out just as quickly. She steps into the light, smiling at me. Her teeth are so white. I stare back at her, suddenly aware of everything. Aware that I'm not the person I thought I was. It's kind of funny, actually, how you forget yourself so easily when you remove a few key memories.

"Did it come back to you, sweet thing?" she asks.

I sigh, smile, and scoop the backpack off the floor. "I remember. Everything."

"Good boy." She stretches her hand out to me. "Come along - we have a job to finish."

I take it and we sweep out of the apartment and into the night. On the way out, I spot Isabelle running up the street. She's crying. Her night's about to get a million times worse. I want to tell her I'm sorry, but there's no time. We have too much to do and so little time to do it in.


	14. Puzzle

**Puzzle**

The mind is like a puzzle. All of the pieces are your experiences and your choices in those experienced determine how the puzzle is put together. If you remove a piece, the puzzle is incomplete. You might not notice it at first, but eventually it will catch your eye and the whole experience of staring at a finished picture will be ruined; no matter how hard you try to put it out of your head, you'll need that fucking piece. Similarly, if you change the way the puzzle looks - where the pieces go, how they fit together, what's on them - then your whole view of the overall picture changes completely.

For the plan to work, she changed my memories. Not all of them - just certain key fragments, starting with the day my mother died.

My mom hadn't been a very happy woman. She had been a mildly happy woman with an unmistakable sadness that seemed to seep in whenever she looked at me for too long. The day she ended it all was the day I got into an argument with her over how I dressed and discovered that my ability to move the odd gadget with my mind went way further. It was the real day I discovered the double vision, as well as the day I learned I was a child of rape.

My father, whose identity was always hidden from me, was a demon. A beast who crept into her hotel room the first night she spent in America. I ran away to sit by myself for a good three hours, before coming home and discovering her note beneath a picture of the two of us and the author of her favourite cookbook - the man who I was made to believe was my father when my memories were changed. I went in and bawled my eyes out beside her bed. She had overdosed on the anti-psychotic meds I needed to take to keep my horrifying waking dreams of purgatory at bay.

Things went a little blurry. I called 911, said nothing to the operator, packed a single bag and ran out of the house. There was no group home. It didn't take me three days to get there. I ran straight to Central Park, where I had learned through word of mouth you could meet a vamp who would make you forget.

Raphael and I crossed paths. He asked where I was going. I said anywhere that I didn't have to feel.

That night, I was his. He fixed me up - straightened my teeth, bought me new clothes, hot food and kept the blood steady. I went with him everywhere. He was everything. And then one day it all ended. They marked me, dragged me away, let me be raped for profit.

I left the dirty brownstone in Queens, escorted by two giant vamps, my entire body shaking like I had been dunked in ice water and forced out into the snow. Blood seeped through my white shirt, leaving horrid scarlet tiger stripes on the fabric. One of the vamps licked his lips. I shuddered.

And that was when I saw her. Ms. Kinney, my art teacher. She was getting out of a taxi a little ways down the street with what appeared to be her husband. In my falsified memory, I whimpered and looked at the pavement, my chest still buzzing with vampire blood and my whole body broken down from being fucked until I thought I was going to die.

In reality, I screamed.

Loud, long, and hard. I shrieked for help. I tried to push down the vampires and succeeded, an insane wave of power rolling through my arms. I got halfway down the street before they tackled me and dragged me back in the car. There was a search for me after that. The police didn't know what to do. If I was caught up with the vampires, there really was nothing they were willing to do. So I was forgotten.

By erasing that memory, she erased everything that went with it. She made me forget that I was a fighter; that I never took anything lying down. I didn't go back to the nest because I needed it. I tried to escape almost every week because I fucking hated it. Eventually it became a sort of game to Raphael. I would try to leave, he would bring me back. I would take a beating and he would laugh. The weaker I got, the sneakier. I gained his trust and he let me go out to do jobs. I would blow them off sometimes, not to run away but to find myself a place to stay, or to try and find someone who could help me escape it all for good.

I couldn't go to the police. They couldn't protect me. What Raphael wanted, Raphael got. That left only one option - Raphael had to die.

Perseverance will get you a lot in this world. It was only by searching way past the point of hope that I found her. It was at a club in Brooklyn that I met her. My client was a woman. We went into a storage room and she tried to be all sensual, saying that only her powers of sexual healing could stop my homosexuality. I frowned through the whole thing, almost as uncomfortable as when I was being hurt. On the way out, she put a cloth in front of my mouth and everything went foggy. I opened my eyes in a glammed up office. Behind the desk was a woman as elegant as the room itself. She said, "Magnus, we need to talk."

And that was how my partnership with Camille began.

We spent months training. Looking into the history of the warlocks, the set up of Raphael's government. His schedule, his way of thinking, who he trusted and who he pretended to trust. We peeled back his past. Camille looked at me not like a whore doing a job for her, but as a warlock - an equal. She should have hated me. It was only natural for our kinds to hate each other. Camille went against the norm, though. She treated her prostitutes like pets, not like animal's for slaughter. She had a sexual harem in the lobby of her high class office building instead of a Boschian nightmare.

Those memories meant the most. She removed them completely. My need to take down Raphael and his clan changed me. It matured me, sobered me, and taught me that I wasn't weak. For those months I went about my painful, blood filled business with a sense of disgust that grew and grew into something harsh and murderous.

The plan was simple. Raphael was going to be at his usual hotspots that Friday night. He knew me well. He wouldn't suspect a thing when I pulled him into the men's room. It was almost expected for a Blood Lord's whore to give him special treatment. I went down on my knees and when Raphael was at his climax, his most vulnerable moment, I struck him with as much power as I could, right in his heart. It shouldn't have failed. Ripping him apart should have been easy as cake. But at the last minute I faltered. I thought, for a moment, that killing wasn't the answer. I thought, for a moment, that it would make me no better than him.

Raphael was wounded. His men were after me. But Camille had thought of a way to protect me. She grabbed me from the washroom, hurried me into the humans dancing without a care in the world, and told me her plan. She would regroup, we would strike in less than a week if everything went well. To keep me safe, she would make sure I ran into someone who would care for me. Alec Lightwood, she said, was just as lonely and outcast as I was. But I would have to forget everything I knew about her. I had to forget we were working together in case Raphael caught me. The oldest vampires can read your mind and peer into your memories. If I had no memories to peer in to, my death at his hands would be a lot quicker and Camille's hands would be clean of blood.

I looked into those green eyes and everything left. My head hurt and my nose was bleeding. One of her hookers - a short boy with reddish hair renamed Mouse - gave me a Dixie cup filled with something that got me very drunk very fast.

I stumbled out of the club, dazed and confused, half memories slipping away from me until... Nothing.

Alec was standing there in the alley, looking completely stoned and a little sick. Camille's people had caught him, erased his memory, and positioned him outside the club. He was my security blanket. Camille knew that he would want to keep me around and help me find my memories. What she hadn't counted on was the two of us getting into as much trouble as we did. A couple days of reading old books and watching TV, safe guarded by an angel with weapons arming him to the teeth.

She hadn't counted on me falling for him, or him falling for me. That was exactly what happened. I fell and I fell hard. Our backup plan hadn't accommodated for Alec's capture, and there sure as hell wasn't any room to save Alec.

No plan is set in stone. A good game of chess once taught me that you have to be able to modify your actions to suit the situation, or else you'll never win. Raphael is down to his piece, holding my King captive. With my puzzle back in place, I straightened my tie and crossed over onto Raphael's side of the board.


	15. Torture

**Torture  
><strong>

Alec didn't know how long he was strapped to the bed, listening to the screaming. It felt like years. It might have been hours. It probably wasn't half that. The whole time he kept thinking, "That's Magnus. That's him screaming. What are they doing to him? Why couldn't they do it to me instead?" He would have much rather suffered than listen to suffering.

Then again, that was probably the point.

The screaming reached a crescendo and sweat beaded all over Alec's naked torso. And then nothing. It cut off out of nowhere and Alec knew deep down that whoever had been shrieking was dead. A shiver crawled over his skin and he began crying. Silent tears streaked down his face as the horrible realization that Magnus could very well be gone took hold of him. Footsteps, soft and steady, began approaching. He heard a door open. Though he knew wherever he was had a broken tile ceiling, he had no clue as to where that actually was. Knowing there was a door didn't exactly narrow it down.

"Hello, little Nephilim." The voice was accented - Hispanic. Raphael. "Did you enjoy Matthew's last evening on Earth? I don't think he did."

A face appeared above him in the dim light. It was dark, handsome - refined and spattered with blood and gore. The bed groaned and folded so that he was standing up, Hannibal Lector style. The room they were in was torn to hell. Windows to his right were covered with garbage bags, but Alec could still hear the sound of the nest outside. He knew where they were now - an abandoned subway line. This must have been one of the offices.

Raphael paced slowly around the old Sanitarium bed. He was short and thin, his white button down and white jeans covered in blood. There was something thick and black sticking out from under his belt. As he finished his inspection a slow grin showed off his fangs. He reminded Alec of a satisfied crocodile, his gums stained dark red. Raphael snapped his teeth and then turned sharply on his heel. He didn't walk across the room - he floated, with the sort of eerie grace of the dead. Alec watched as he pulled a TV out of a dilapidated supply closet. It rolled across the drywall-strewn floor with ease. Raphael plugged it in and pulled the thick black object from under his belt - a VCR tape.

"It seems that my Magnus has taken a liking to you. What a pity." He rapped the tape with his knuckles. "He's bad for business, that one."

"You don't know him," Alec said boldly, glaring.

Raphael laughed. "I don't know him? My dear boy, _you_ don't know him. Not from Eve."

Alec closed his eyes, trying to shut out Raphael and his poison. "The Magnus you knew was a young, stupid junkie. I know the sober Magnus."

"You know the lying Magnus," Raphael corrected. "Let me guess - he came into your home, batted his eyelashes, acted all sweet and innocent and confused and hurt. Wormed his way into your bed. Into your pants. Was the sex any good? " Alec's face flushed and Raphael laughed again. "He made you feel like you created the sunshine, all so that he could have somewhere to hide. He wanted your protection, not your love."

"You're wrong," Alec said, but he wasn't sure. "What he felt was real."

"Ah yes. Alexander Lightwood, Pathokinetic in exile. They think you're so, so dangerous because of one hissy fit you had when you were young. You can't even differentiate between true feeling and forced." Raphael shook his head, his smug smile still in place. "Do you know why I want Magnus Bane dead?"

Alec said nothing.

Raphael's voice went from pitying to furious. It echoed harshly off the walls, almost making Alec cringe. Almost. "That _rat_ plotted against me for months. He offered me the gratification I deserve and tried to pull my heart from my chest."

"You're not exactly drumming up sympathy from me. What do I care if he tried to kill you?" Alec looked away from the fuming vampire with feigned disinterest. "He's a bastard for not succeeding."

Raphael spat on the floor and slammed the tape into the VCR. "You want to idolize a whore? See him for what he really is." Raphael was suddenly in front of Alec, his hand forcing them nose to nose. His fingers sliced through Alec's skin. "Watch him _suffer_."

The tape began to play. Alec's head perked up at the sound of Magnus's voice. "Please, stop." His throat was thick with tears. "I - I can't. No more. Please." Raphael watched Alec's eyes go wide with realization. His grin was worthy of a demon. Red light danced in his irises. Magnus on the tape screamed, begging, "No, no, no, no - STOP!"

Raphael let go of Alec's face. He quickly undid his belt and forced Alec's head back. It didn't matter that he struggled. The Blood Lord had the advantage. He fixed Alec's head into place, forcing him to stare at the screen.

"This one is about three hours long, I think," Raphael said calmly. "Enjoy."

And then he flickered out of the room with that surreal speed vampires possessed, leaving Alec to watch the video. Closing his eyes made no difference. Alec could still hear Magnus pleading the brutish vampire on top of him to stop. He tried to focus on Magnus's hair, on his face - he tried to think of how he knew him. He tried to think of the sun hitting his eyes on the Brooklyn Bridge and how sweet he'd been when they'd made love the night before. Thinking of that made him sick. What he was watching was a terrible parody of what they'd done. Alec had wondered that first night how someone could be so bruised - how they could let themselves take a beating over and over again. He had wondered how Magnus had just laid there and taken the abuse.

He hadn't. He'd fought like hell, and that only seemed to make it all the worse.

He was begging for help, staring straight into the camera that appeared to be set up in the vampire's closet. His eyes were glazed with the vampire blood induced high. He could see hate and disgust lighting through them. Did the blood really take away all of the pain, or did it just make you forget?

Alec didn't begin to cry until the vampire stopped and left Magnus, who was panting and sobbing.

"Sit up," the vamp ordered.

Magnus did as he said, drawing his knees to his chest. He was biting his lip, just like Alec was doing watching it. The vampire slapped him. Alec winced. He slapped him again. A dry sound left Alec's throat.

"Dirty fucking slut," the vampire growled. "That's all you are." He hit Magnus harder, fingers curled. Alec half screamed. "Disgusting faggot slut!"

The vampire grabbed Magnus by the knees and pulled him to the foot of the bed. He picked up a leather covered baton and smashed Magnus over the head with it. For a moment Magnus was completely still in shock. Alec thought he saw his eyes flicker. For the barest moment he thought he saw that blackness take over. The curtains in the background of the video ruffled. And then Magnus fell backwards, his eyes half open.

Unconscious.

Alec tried to tell himself that it was better that way. That at least Magnus couldn't feel the vampire continue to defile him. But he knew that was wrong. It was just as horrible. Bile crept up Alec's throat.

Three hours of this. Three full hours of this torture.

He took a shaky breath. If Magnus could live through it, he could live through watching it. It was all going to be alright.

Magnus was coming for him. It was going to be alright.


	16. O My Brother

**O My Brother  
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Isabelle rubbed her fists into her eyes and then wiped the tears away from her cheeks. She wanted to think they were caused by the smoke rising out of the bin fire in front of her because nothing was ever allowed to make Isabelle Lightwood cry. Not boy trouble, not insecurity, not injury, not fear. She was a stone. She was strong. Nothing was supposed to effect her.

Not even this.

She watched, jaw set, as flames curled the edges of Magnus's note up. They disintegrated to ash and fluttered to the bottom of the scorched garbage can. The homeless man who's fire she had stolen groaned, half awake. Isabelle spared a glance at him and caught the flicker of a shadow on the edge of her vision. Her hand gripped her whip and she spun on her heel just in time to see Jace emerge from the darkness. His eyes were hard, the suit jacket thrown over his t-shirt worse for wear.

"They're looking for him," he said softly. "The Inquiry was a fucking joke."

While Isabelle had gone to warn Alec, Jace had been present at the Inquiry. He and Max were Alec's last chance - two eye witnesses. But for some reason, even that hadn't been enough. Isabelle knew it wouldn't be enough. The moment she found out Alec was taken she had texted Jace and told him to meet under the Williamsburg Bridge.

"The ruling?"

Jace's face was grave. "Guilty."

A part of Isabelle wanted to break down crying, but she stayed strong and listened to Jace's explanation.

"They said Sebastian was harmless. Made Alec out to be this mysterious monster. That bitch Imogen said that the Clave knew nothing about Alec and after that it didn't matter what Max and I said." He ran a hand through his hair, tugging out the knots painfully. "You know how terrified they are about people with powers like Alec. He never had a chance."

Isabelle felt sick. How could they condemn someone on the basis of not knowing him when they were the ones who pushed him away? Isabelle remembered the cold gray morning when Alec got into that town car and never came home. Now they wanted that town car to go farther, straight off into the afterlife.

She couldn't bear to think of him dying, especially not when it seemed so likely. Alec was in grave danger. The Clave wasn't even his biggest foe. He was captured, taken into the vampire nest, and the only one able to go after him was a fucking flake ass junkie.

"We need to save him," Isabelle choked. The words bubbled out of her throat like vomit. "Alec needs us. How can we just stand around while he's... While they..."

Jace put his hand on her shoulder. "Issy, shhh... You know as well as I do that the moment either of us lays eyes on Alec, he's as good as dead. They have our minds tapped for his presence."

She swallowed a hopeless sob. All she wanted was her older brother. "What are we going to do?" she whispered hoarsely. "Jace, I feel so... helpless..."

He dropped down and sat cross legged. Isabelle followed suit, leaning her head on his shoulder. They both stared at the orange glow of the bin fire. "He could have left it all, you know? He had a chance to leave the demons and the vampires and everything, but he didn't. He stayed to help us and serve the Clave." Jace swallowed thickly. Moisture glistened in his eyes. "They didn't give him a fair trial because he's different."

Isabelle nodded softly, her whole body numb with the cold. It was somehow warmer outside than it had been in Alec's apartment, but it was still freezing. "Right when he needs us the most, we can't be there for him."

"We were never there for him," Jace admitted. "Not really." Isabelle watched a couple of hot tears slide down Jace's cheeks. He mopped up his face with the sleeve of his jacket, but more tears came still. "He was lonely, Iz. I could feel it every time I went over there. All of those fucking books and chess and TV shows. All he wanted was a god damn friend and I could never stick around long enough to be that for him."

They were both silent, wrapped in their own miserable pity parties. Isabelle couldn't even imagine where Alec was. Below her feet, maybe, enduring horrible torture. Or dead. Or both. Zombification was an option. Perhaps they had turned her brother into a dribbling shell of a person, only understanding the need to move and the need to eat. Her sweet, shy, straightforward older brother...

Rage built up inside of her, like a tidal wave, scorching and red. She bounded up onto her feet. Jace stared at her blankly.

"Fuck this. I'm not going to cry like he's dead."

Jace stood up too, his eyebrows pulled tight together in agony. "Well he might as well be! We can't help him or he'll die, Isabelle! Alec is gone either way."

She shook her head. "No. No, Magnus is going to save him. You said yourself he's powerful as all hell. Let's save ourselves some misery, consider him saved, and wash this fucking Earth of that scum half brother of yours."

Her brother was shaking his head, hands knotted in his hair. "Isabelle, no - "

"He'll never stop - "

"We can't - "

"Jace, just hear me out - "

"It's not going to get Alec back!" Jace shouted, eyes blazing gold in the firelight. The power of the Angel swept around him, the air electrified. In the flickering light, Isabelle saw the shadows of wings. "It's done, it's over. Killing Sebastian won't do anything."

"Well it's better than sitting here crying!" she nearly screamed.

They stared each other down. Isabelle's hand tightened around her whip. The homeless man moaned and her upper lip quirked over her teeth. Jace broke eye contact. He spun around, screamed "FUCK!" and kicked the barrel containing the fire so hard it fell over. The weeds stretching up through the concrete caught fire and the homeless man jerked awake. The Lightwood siblings turned their basilisk glares onto him, both looking like nightmarish renditions of angel's with their glowing eyes and bristling phantom wings. The man scrambled to his feet and tore drunkenly out from under the bridge.

"What," Jace repeated through his teeth, "will killing Sebastian solve?"

Isabelle thought about it for the barest moment; thought outside of watching the light leave the eyes of the boy who had torn her family apart. "What would it hurt? Alec is already facing death for his lies."

"Iz, they'll know it was us."

"I have a plan. They won't suspect a thing." The fire was creeping closer to Isabelle's boots, flickering light against her skin. She held out her hand to him. "We owe it to him. Let's do something for Alec."

He set his jaw and took her hand. "For Alec."

And the two Nephilim evaporated into the night.


	17. Blood

**Blood  
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The movie ended, but Alec wasn't alone for long. The blue from the screen washed over Alec undisturbed as Raphael crossed the room. He cast no shadow, and though Alec knew that that was something vampires did, it was a lot less disturbing in theory than it was in practice. Raphael turned off the TV and flicked on the lights, smiling fondly at Alec's exhausted, tear stained face.

"How was it?"

"Go fuck yourself."

The Blood Lord laughed. He glided over the floor to Alec, his sour breath washing over his face. "Oh, I intend fucking someone." He snaked his tongue out and licked up Alec's cheek. His hand slid beneath Alec and grabbed his ass painfully. He winced. "What you saw is nothing in comparison to what I'm going to do to you."

Alec swallowed hard and considered his options. He couldn't break his bonds, but he could try biting Raphael. Then again, he was a vampire so he might like it and the last thing Alec wanted was vampire blood in his mouth. Alec tried doing something with his powers, but that was a dead end. You can't make the dead pity you. Raphael's hands skirted around to Alec's belt buckle. The vampire tugged it open and ground his knuckles against him. Alec closed his eyes and bit his lip, forcing himself not to react. He could take the pain - it was the humiliation and the defiling that posed a problem.

His pants loosened and Raphael began tugging at his shirt. Alec strained his wrists against his bounds. It was rope, thick and tied so tight that he couldn't feel his hands. He tried to pull free of them again, but it was no use. Alec was strong, but he wasn't that strong. Raphael pulled his shirt off. The cold distracted him for a moment before Raphael scraped his nails down Alec's chest, drawing blood. The vampire licked it up, slow and cruel.

What Alec needed was a knife, maybe a shard of glass...

And then it hit him. He jerked his knee up, his ankle scraping against the rope. He felt it, tucked away in the secret slip built into all of his boxers - his folded scythe. How could he have been so stupid before?

Raphael reached up and pulled the belt restraining his head off. Alec attempted to head butt him, but he was too quick. The Blood Lord pushed his forehead back, boring into Alec's eyes with his own. Alec took that chance to snake his fingers into his boxers. It was almost out of reach, but he was able to get the barest grip on the scythe. He pulled it up, centimeter by centimeter, until it was in his numb fingers. Alec slid his thumb up the base, feeling the smallest of the blades swick out. While Raphael looked over his face, he began to saw through the rope.

"You're not afraid," Raphael said. "Either you're incredibly brave or unbelievably stupid."

Jace would have had a witty retort. Alec just stared, blank as a sheep. He was too busy freeing himself. Raphael closed his eyes for a moment, so close that Alec shivered. He stopped sawing for a moment. The rope was nearly cut through. So close. Raphael snorted at his own thoughts and then met Alec's gaze again, red flickering through his irises. "I know just what you need to feel true hell," he said.

Everything happened so fast.

Alec broke through the rope and freed his hand. He rolled his wrist and swept up to strike Raphael across the face. The blow hit and the vampire staggered backwards, but it was too late. Alec hadn't even realized that the vampire had already won. In the time it took Alec to lift his arm and execute his surprise attack, Raphael had already bitten his own wrist and forced his blood into Alec's mouth. Alec inhaled, choked on what he thought was his own spit, and swallowed.

A drop was all it took.

The room began to bend and curve as Alec chopped through the rest of his bounds. He fell to the floor in a heap, his wrist bent at an odd angle. Raphael snarled at him and charged. He flipped his big blade out - the one he'd nicknamed Archie. It sliced clean through Raphael's outstretched arm and he fell back, howling. Alec struggled onto his feet, pupils blown and arms shaking. He wanted to laugh and cry and vomit and fuck - instead he ran, the world undulating around him, swirling and twirling like a Van Gogh painting.

He managed to find the door out into the hellish main room. With all of the bending and stretching, the place somehow managed to look even more like Dante's Inferno. Alec stumbled through the bodies and the blood, the moaning and the screaming and the begging for mercy. He tripped off the edge of the raised platform, falling face first into the torn up earth that had once been a subway line.

"FIND HIM!" he heard Raphael scream a thousand miles away.

Alec didn't know which way was up and which was down. His face was bleeding and his body was on fire. He could hear a million voices calling for him. Alec rolled over and opened his eyes. The concrete ceiling webbed with exposed wiring morphed into a beautiful sky. Clouds of gold and red and purple - a sunset. He reached up to grab the clouds and found himself being yanked onto his feet. Something heavy slammed him over the back and all of the breath was knocked out of him. The scythe in his hand snapped open and he began slicing indiscriminately until someone tore it away from him. Dark shadows were grabbing him and pulling him. Alec shook his head hard and realized they weren't shadows at all. They were vampires and he was still in the tunnel.

He slid underneath them and tried running again. It was like moving in quicksand, his feet sinking lower and lower with each step. Was there a train chasing after him? It felt like there was. It felt like the whole world was after him. He ran through a kaleidoscope of nightmares, demons crashing into angels in his peripheral vision. Scenes from his memories and from books and from TV all mixed together.

Without warning, the tunnel changed into a giant library. Alec stumbled to a halt and watched his family emerge from the doorway in front of him. They were all wearing white, the colour of death and of mourning - the clothes they wore the day Alec was exiled. It was to show that he was as good as dead to the Clave and his family.

"I'm sorry, Alec," his mother said. Her voice echoed, pairing up with his memory.

Alec shook his head, backing away.

"You're going to have to go away for a little while," his father said solemnly.

"No," he gasped. "_NO_!"

He turned from them and bolted from the room. The library broke apart, wisps of colour flying off into the shadows. He was in the tunnel again, everything rocking and turning like a funhouse. Alec needed to get away. He needed to get out of the tunnels and into the sunlight. But what if it was night? In his scrambled up brain, he knew he was going to die. He could feel it slicking over him like oil.

Heart stone cold, Alec dropped to the ground. He looked around and realized he was all alone. Everything was shivering, but empty. He could hear people screaming and barking out orders in the distance. Alec felt like a little boy, alone and terrified. His Nephilim blood was burning away the vampire, but not nearly fast enough. It didn't matter anyways. He would never be strong enough to take on the whole nest. His erratic running had left him lost, tangled up in the tunnel system.

He heard boots crunching over old, yellowing bones, both animal and human. His heart sunk further and he looked toward the dark end of the tunnel and watched a tall man in a suit step into the flitting light of an oil lamp. Alec recognized him immediately and the fear that he was hallucinating again took him over. His eyes fluttered half closed and he laughed as the mirage of Magnus ran to him.

"Holy fucking shit," he swore quickly.

Alec rested his forehead back on his knees. "Magnus, Magnus, Magnus," he chanted. "You're sexy." His hips were rolling, but it was doing little to give him the friction he wanted. Alec tried to pull Magnus closer. He managed to sneak a few kisses to the collar of Magnus's black silk shirt. He dragged his bottom row of teeth up his throat and caught Magnus's earlobe in between his lips, forcing him to lean back and groan.

Magnus took Alec's chin in his hand and forced his mouth open. A little red pill fell on Alec's tongue and dissolved quickly. His vision cleared up almost instantly. His Nephilim senses roared back into action and his ears popped. For a moment he stared in shock. Magnus flicked the plastic baggie of pills and smiled. "Condensed, powdered Fae blood. Instantly eradicates the effects of vamp blood." His smile faltered. "Alec, we have some things to talk about."


	18. Truth

**Truth**

"Alec, we have some things to talk about." It's an understatement more than a lie, but it sounds just as wrong rolling off my tongue. "Well, I have some things I need to explain to you."

Alec's eyes are still unclear when he springs at me. He wraps his arms around me and buries his head in my shoulder. He doesn't have a shirt and his chest is all torn up. For a moment I'm terrified that he'll get blood on my suit, and then the moment passes and I'm consumed by the discomfort his nearness brings me.

I know Alec. He still makes my heart stutter and my mind go blank. But the Magnus he knows is a lie.

"We need to get out of here," he whispers.

I push him backwards. He doesn't move. I push harder. Finally he gets the message and moves away. The pills I gave him are still working away at the vampire blood. There are lingering side effects. His pupils are blown. His eyes are bloodshot. His whole body is shaking and he looks like he's going to be sick. I help him to his feet and he sways, so I pick him up and carry him into the nearest room. The mattress is disgusting and it reeks of something I don't even want to name, but Alec needs somewhere to come down. I can feel his eyes on me as I run my fingers around the rough, circular door frame. The air shimmers blue.

"It's called a warding," I explain. "Every time someone looks in here, they'll lose interest in whatever they see and walk away. And even if they don't, they're not getting inside without losing their skin."

"When did you learn to do that?" he asks, but his voice is thin. He's falling into that horrible half-consciousness.

I sit down on the floor beside the mattress after I sweep the ground with a flare of magic. Alec watches me do it and then closes his eyes, skin sweaty. "There's a book called The Purgatoire Rouge. It was created by a mundie medium in the 1600's who had visions of spells being cast by black-eyed men in women in a land of eternal red dawn. I read it several months ago. Lovely book. Had my name engraved into the cover."

"I... don't understand..."

I absently run my index finger over the stitching of my dress shoe. "Alec... I'm not the Magnus you knew." And then I tell him the whole story. About my visions as a child, growing up being told that I was crazy, having my mom kill herself when my powers began to show. Being a child of rape, throwing myself at the feet of Raphael, screaming my head off trying to get help. The months of abuse and the cold nights wishing I was anywhere else. Waking up in Camille's office. The plotting and the hatred, learning to use my powers, letting the hate build - and then chickening out at the last minute. I told him how he was a back up plan. How my stupidity got him dragged into the whole mess. I tell him everything and then I wait.

His eyes are open, and even though they're glassy with fever, I know he was paying attention.

"You lied," he mumbles.

"I didn't know I was lying."

"You know now."

We're silent. It's the kind of harsh quiet that makes your ears sting with all the things that have and haven't been said. He hates me. I know it. I never meant to hurt him, but at the same time I used him willingly. Looking at his face in the half-light, I still feel the same way as I did before. My heart pounds when I think of touching him, of lying down beside him and holding his hand. I'm not the same person, though. That Magnus he knew was a beaten down teenager - someone to save. The real Magnus is a lying, scheming, powerful person. The real Magnus is the knight, not the damsel.

I'm not what Alec wants.

"I lied too."

Alec's voice shatters through my miserable pity party. His bottom lip quivers and he bites it, crossing his arms of his chest. He looks absolutely frozen. I pull my jacket off and wrap it around him while he gathers his thoughts.

"I made you stay," he near whispers. "You wanted to leave. I could feel it. And I let you go the first time, but after that I..." He chokes on his words, ducking his head down. "I controlled your emotions. I made you want me so you wouldn't leave."

My stomach drops. Ice webs across my skin. "The whole time?"

Alec shakes his head. "I stopped when we were in the nest."

I think of before the nest, how Alec made me feel all fuzzy and fluttery. Everything seemed to focus on him. His hair and his teeth and his skin. I wanted to be near him, to bask in that weird electricity that followed him. It was like basking in sunbeams, all of which emanated from Alec Lightwood. But after the nest, that warmth turned to fire. His touch burned me. Alec stopped being a magnet and started being Alec - kind and caring and hot and sweet. And lonely, just like me. Both Magnus's had that in common.

"You swear you stopped after the nest?"

"I swear."

I shiver as I crawl up onto the mattress. Alec stares at me, expecting me to be angry or sad. I don't know what I feel. I just know that I feel it. His influence is null. I look at my Rolex. We have an hour. I pull my jacket over me and put my arms around him, half surprised when he lets me. He rests his head on my shoulder and I kiss his dirty hair.

And we sleep.


	19. Battle

**Battle**

Our hour ends before it even begins.

I sit up and take my jacket back. Stand and stretch. Try to feel like I'm alive again. Alec blinks, disoriented. His hair is all messed up and I laugh at him. "It's like a cranial tornado went through here."

"You're one to talk," he glares.

Oh, right. He's never seen my spikes before. Alec runs his hands over his hair, but it tames nothing. I stick my tongue out at him and peer out the door. It's all clear. I can feel vampires close, but they won't be a problem. "I'll take you to an exit. Run as far away from here as possible and meet me in Times Square tomorrow at noon."

"What?"

I look him over, sitting on the dirty mattress in near darkness, his naked torso covered in bruises. The bottoms of his socks are black. "I've put you in too much danger. Just lay low for the rest of the night. Stay clear of Nephilim. They have a death warrant out on you."

Alec opens his mouth and then closes it. "Death warrant?" he squeaks.

It takes me a minute to explain what I know of the situation. I'm getting impatient. The clock is tick-tick-ticking. We only have so much time. Camille's troops are arriving soon. Alec looks terrified for a moment, but then he swallows it and stands up. "I'm going with you."

"You don't even know where I'm going."

"If you leave me, I'll follow you." He peers around me to the backpack lying in a heap on the cave floor. "You brought my stuff anyways."

I bite my bottom lip, glancing at my watch. Fuck, this is taking up too much time. "I go into the main hall alone. You can hide yourself, right?"

Alec lifts his hands in surrender. "You won't even see me." He throws on the backpack. I frown at his bare feet, worrying about him stepping on glass. Here I am, letting him walk into battle without any semblance of a plan and I'm freaking about him hurting his feet. My priorities have always been a bit scrambled.

We leave the cave and Alec's face changes. His eyebrows pull together and his mouth sets into a hard line. He drifts silently beside me through the tunnels, stopping me twice to let vampires and whores pass. I can feel the approach of the vampires. They buzz like white hot fires in my mind. The humans are another story. Alec senses everything. He pulls something out of his backpack and I only realize it's a bow and arrow when a vampire comes down like a ton of lumber behind me. I give Alec an awestruck look at he beams at me, then we continue on.

My back route leads us to the main hall. There's a thirty foot fall to the ground. That's where I leave Alec.

We stare at each other, our voices drowned in the screams below. Alec cups my face and I lean forward. We kiss, soft and sweet, and pull apart far too soon. I turn to go and Alec holds me back. He puts his ears to my lips and whispers something, but I can't hear it. The feeling is enough. I'm pretty sure I know what he said. He lets go of me and leaves. I can almost feel him walking away as I step forward into the air and disintegrate into black smoke.

_I need you_.

I need you too, Alec.

It takes everything I have to push thoughts of him out of my head. I let go of them one by one as I rush through the crowd, untouchable, clearing the way. Everything has fallen together perfectly. As the vampires fall to the ground, masses of bloody pulp, Camille and her troops arrive. They're dressed to impress, wearing black evening wear. Camille herself is draped in blood red rubies, her eyes glowing. I strike clean through the crowd, right up to the throne they've erected for Raphael, so that he can oversee the search for Alec.

Vampires and humans scatter, their screams changing in tone and frequency. They're panicking, running from the threat instead of listening to Raphael and attacking. The shitty thing about running a nest on addiction and sex is that no one is loyal to you. We cut clear to the throne. Raphael doesn't stand up. Three dead junkies lie at his feet. He drained them dry to try and counterbalance the damage done tohis arm. It's so bizarre that I don't register it at first. His right arm is completely gone, the wound wrapped with dirty gauze. I try not to stare at it as I solidify beside Camille.

I take my time straightening my suit as the hundred or so vampires Camille brought with her get into formation behind us. I shoot Raphael the cruelest grin I can muster. His face is webbed with black and green veins, his skin like candle wax. He spits something at me in Spanish and I shrug it off.

"What can you do to me that your little boy toy hasn't already?" Raphael kicks the junkie's bodies and they go flying. He storms down off of his throne, those loyal to him falling in behind him. "He has made me ugly." He gestures to his face. "I will not live in a world where I look like this."

"Luckily you won't have to," Camille says smoothly. "Kneel, Raphael. Take death like a man."

Raphael snorts and spits thick black mucous onto her shoes. Her gaze doesn't waver. "Take death like a man," he scoffs. "Coming from the woman who sent a _whore_ to slaughter me in a bathroom, that means so little."

Camille says nothing because she's good at saying nothing. Her eyes speak volumes more than her lips ever could. I watch as she angles her head towards me and smiles. "He's yours, Magnus."

I nod, grave, and meet Raphael's eyes, inciting double vision. He's an ugly thing, withered and hateful. I expect fear. I find nothing. Whatever humanity had once inhabited the old Raphael was gone, burned out with blood and greed. I lift my hand, and though we're several feet apart, I can feel his heart in my palm. Tendrils of my power wrap around it, holding it tight. A quick tug and it will be out of his body. My saga as a Blood Whore will officially end and I will be free of him. Raphael will be washed from my nightmares. He won't hurt anyone ever again.

I think of Jess, back when she'd bitten me. How I'd made her lie flat against the ceiling. How I had torn the heart clean from her body.

My stomach twists, cold, and my grip on his heart falters. I can't do it. I can't kill him. I'm not a killer. I'm just a kid. My arm shakes and Raphael lunges at me. If he's going to die, he's taking me with him. I try to grab a hold of his heart again, but it's too late. He moves to fast for me to catch him. With nothing left to do, I close my eyes and wait for it.

_Shunk._

The whole hall seems to go silent.

I open my eyes and watch as Raphael separates.

The monster flies towards me, thick black fog, while a wide eyed boy drops backwards. For a moment he's not a vampire - he's a confused human, clutching at his heart with one arm. An arrow is buried deep in his chest. No one else sees the human. They don't hear him gasp "Ayúdame" before his body withers back into melted candle wax and swollen veins.

Right before he hits the ground, he explodes. I raise my hand and shield myself from it with a short burst of wind, but it splatters against Camille.

She wipes her face with a grimace and then slowly picks her way through Raphael's remains to the throne of yellowed bones. When she turns towards me, I can see the ugliness hidden behind her flawless white skin. She slowly takes her seat and peers over the crowd. Raphael's nest stares back in awe and terror. They know she's their new master. She doesn't need to say anything.

Camille's eyes fall on me and she cocks her head.

"Now, what to do with you..."

I blink several times. "What?"

She laughs, high and sweet. Everyone else laughs, though I think they get the joke about as much as I do. "You didn't think I was going to let you _live_, did you?" She flips her hair and I have the sudden urge to grab it and yank it out of her head. "Our kind eradicated yours thousands of years ago for a reason!"

Fuck shit fuck shit fuck shit.

"But... but we've been working together..." I trail off. She starts laughing again. Everything falls into place in an instant. I haven't been working with her. I've been working for her. How could I be so fucking stupid? I step backwards and two of her loyal guards grab me by the jacket. I slip on what's left of Raphael when I try to turn around and Camille laughs louder.

"You are a fool, Magnus Bane." She crosses her legs. I catch the careless movement out of the corner of my eye as I struggle and hate her all the more for it. "A weak, spineless fool."

Power flickers through me as fury bubbles without an exit.I focus on her heart. I focus on pulling it from her body. The guards jostle me. They hit and kick and punch me so that I can't catch a moment to concentrate. I try to push them away, but something's happening. I can feel the power, but it's almost like it's trapped beneath ice. They drag me through Raphael up to the throne. Far off, I hear screaming.

I don't realize it's Alec until the dagger flashes. Camille's hand is quick. I feel it pass through my heart in every cell of my body. There is no such thing as instant death. The pain of expiration is endless. That moment in which something stops your body from working is excruciating. I don't die instantly. For a moment I realize my fate and I don't accept it. My every fiber screams against it and I feel a terror I've never felt before.

Alec's screeching my name. It's the last thing I hear as I drop to my knees.

And then I am no more.


	20. Avenge

_I'm putting this out a day early because people keep thinking that was the end. It wasn't. The end is much more depressing. Or is it? MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA._**  
><strong>

**Avenge**

Jonathon Morgenstern peered down at the moon paled grass through the newly restored window. It was the very same window he had fallen from two years earlier - the one that had nearly cost him his life. He remembered every moment of agony. He remembered feeling as though his heart was about to stop, listening to it slow and fade until it was almost silent. He remembered Alec's anger fading and his own returning. Months of planning, ruined by a pissed off gay kid. In the end he realized his gravest mistake was underestimating Alec Lightwood, but that was all taken care of. The Clave would see to it. By the time they realized their mistake, both Alec and Jace would be dead and Jonathon would be long gone.

The Nephilim wiped his hand across his brow. The amount of effort it was taking to influence the Clave into believing him was taking its toll. Jonathon knew he was living on borrowed time. The only reason he wasn't a decomposing mass at that moment was his cruel father teaching him the art of Soul Devouring. Jonathon remembered the look in the eyes of the Silent Brother that had unwillingly given the very essence of his life to keep Jonathon going. Paling. Losing. Dying.

He smirked to himself.

The door to the sitting room creaked and Jonathon turned quickly, his hand flying to his belt. He had no weapon, though. Robert Lightwood had confiscated them for his stay in the Institute, his face hard and his eyes cold as he did it. They wouldn't attack him, right? The Lightwood's weren't stupid. Killing another Nephilim was a serious offense. Everyone would know they did it.

"Who's there?" Jonathon barked.

The door creaked open further and Jonathon's heart nearly stopped once again. A tall, dark haired boy stood in the frame. Of all the things that ran through his mind, Jonathon picked the smallest detail first. Alec's expression was all wrong. He had never seemed so serene, or so carefree. And his eyes had never looked so dark. Those chewed lips were quirked up in the strangest smirk. It made him look... wicked.

"You," Jonathon ground out.

Slowly, Alec reached into his giant holey cardigan and streaked his hands across black t-shirt. In the moonlight his hands were unnaturally white, streaked with deep scarlet blood. "You killed me." He grabbed the hem of his shirt and lifted it up far enough to let Jonathon see the gruesome gash - the bright ivory of bone, the stillness of his heart beneath his exposed ribcage. "It's time to return the favour."

Jonathon looked to his left, then to his right. There was a brass statue of an angel holding a spear. He grabbed it and charged at Alec, who smiled pleasantly as Jonathon neared. The spear thrust out to Alec's heart, but he was gone. The boy had disappeared completely, leaving only darkness.

"Oh, come on now. You can do better than that, can't you?" Alec said from one of the uncomfortable couches in front of the fire. "Stabbing? Really?" He made a stabbing motion and shook his head. "How... barbaric. Don't you think so?"

Jonathon didn't know how Alec was doing it, but that didn't matter so much to him. He turned and bolted from the room, pounding his way through the halls to the library.

"I saw him! Alec is in the Institute! He was in the sitting room!" The words burst out uninvited, crazed.

Alec's parents were across from the giant desk, where Imogen Herondale sat, looking like she had swallowed a lemon. Her two cohorts from the Nephilim home land shared a glance and then stamped forward. They followed him back to the sitting room, muttering amongst themselves. Jonathon felt like a child being patronized. He threw the door open, half expecting Alec to be standing right there, all in blood and gore. Instead, the room was empty and deathly still. The Nephilim searched and then shared a shrug when they came up empty handed.

"He's not here, Sebastian," the one said.

"Well, he could have left the bloody room," he spat. "Check the rest of the Institute."

"If he was here he would have had to have passed the wards. We would know."

Jonathon swore and slumped into one of the chairs. He had to keep his calm, or they would suspect something. "He was here. I saw him."

"We'll check," said the other Nephilim. "Just don't get your hopes up. We'll catch him soon enough."

Jonathon nodded, feeling the anger swell inside of him. The two Nephilim left and he waited until their footsteps were distant echoes to kick an end table so hard it shattered.

"I never really liked that temper of yours," Alec said. Jonathon turned and saw him standing by the window. There was blood splattered all over his face. "In fact, I didn't really like you."

"You didn't seem to mind me when I was fucking you senseless," Jonathon hissed.

For a moment Alec's expression was a mix of shock, anger, and disgust. "You never - "

"Oh, did you forget so soon?" Jonathon wore a delighted grin. "You always wanted to be on top, but be damned if I let that happen. Fucking a faggot is one thing. Getting fucked by a faggot - _disgusting_."

Alec's shape flickered and his hands clenched into fists.

Jonathon laughed once, harsh. "I knew it. You're nothing but a glamour." He picked up a piece of the broken table and tossed it at Alec's image. It tore through his midsection, proving that he wasn't actually there. "A very good glamour, I must say. In fact, I know only a handful of people good enough to do this kind of work."

A square of ceiling tile scraped and Isabelle Lightwood dropped down in front of the blank faced image of brother. Jonathon had always thought her jarringly beautiful. the way she stared at him then made his skin crawl. She reached her hand out and Alec's soulless projection exploded into vapour, running up her arm and into her eyes, nose, and mouth. "You son of a bitch," she growled. "How _dare_ you talk about my brother that way."

He smirked at her. "I speak only the truth, _Izzy_." She flinched at her own name. "Oh what a treat this will be. First I'll have Alec, then I'll have you for conspiring to kill me, and with both of you gone, I can be rid of that no good brother of mine."

"Half-brother," Jace said from the door. He knocked it shut with his foot, eyes burning. "And even then it's only by blood."

Jonathon's blood boiled when he saw Jace. The hatred he held for his brother jogged him into action. He lunged forward, remembering the day Jace left Idris to live with the Lightwood's. Jonathon was left with their crazed father until the house burned down at his hands and he was thought dead. Jace escaped. Jace found happiness. Jace had to die.

Heat sliced around his ankles. Jonathon only felt Isabelle's whip curl around his feet as he fell to the floor. Suddenly there were hands on him. Two paisr, both sets stronger than him. He was nearly drained from using his powers.

"You put a death warrant on our brother," Isabelle spat. "You put the other in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. You've torn our family apart. You have this coming."

Jonathon tried to scream, but Jace swiftly cut it off with a chokehold. He was stronger than normal Nephilim. It was an Angel given gift, much like the one Jonathon had hidden since his birth. He could influence people with his words and make them believe what he wanted them to believe. But you can't trick people who are certain of the truth, and you can't talk with an arm barring your throat.

Isabelle grabbed a chair and smashed the window out - the same one Jonathon had fallen from before. He struggled, but it was no use. Jace forced him onto the ledge. It felt like he was standing on the precipice of Mount Everest.

Jace hovered near his ear, breathing heavily, as though he was choosing his words. Finally, he murmured, "See you in hell, _brother_."

And then Jonathon was falling.

o-o-o

"Suicide?"

Imogen shook her head with a grimace. The gesture was affirmative in the saddest way. "You saw him come into the library. The boy was crazy."

"So this is Jonathon Morgenstern?"

The Inquisitor said nothing, though she knew it to be true.

Maryse Lightwood turned to Isabelle and Jace, who were hovering on the edge of the courtyard, their expressions unreadable. "Do you know where your brother is?"

Isabelle swallowed. Once he had died, Jonathon's ability to fool others with his words had lost its power. Isabelle opened her mouth to explain that Alec had been taken by the vampires hours earlier, but nothing came out. A dry, worried sound cracked through her lips.

"He's gone," Jace said for her. "He was taken by vampires." It took him a moment to explain the entire situation. Maryse stared at him in silent horror as he revealed everything that had happened in the past week.

"You know where the nest is," she barked, cutting off the end of the story.

Jace swallowed hard. "Yes."

"Gear up," she said. "We're getting your brother."

"Maryse," Imogen began, "we cannot just walk into a vampires nest. There are Accords to consider - "

"They should have thought of that before they took my boy," Robert said, opening a little used cell phone to make a call to other Nephilim for assistance. "Yes? Thomas? We have a situation."

"The Clave does not dispatch for lone, exiled Nephilim - " she sputtered.

Maryse turned a cold look on her. "Feel free to sit here and worry about the Accords and Clave protocol. My son could be drained at this very moment all because of your inability to see through a teenage boy's influence. Now we are getting geared up and going out there to save him."

She snapped her hair over her shoulder and stalked out of the courtyard, Isabelle, Jace, and Robert following her. The two Nephilim who came with The Inquisitor left after them, and she was completely alone with the body of Jonathon Morgenstern.

For a few moments she stood there, staring at the boy. His eyes stared back at her, blank. There was something that struck her about the way they were. It was almost as if, even in death, he was furious. The woman's knees felt weak. She tried to leave, but found herself unable to move. His eyes were pulling her in, drowning her. She couldn't stare away from him.

A scream fought to escape her throat, but her mouth slammed shut of its own will. The scream faded as her vision blurred. Moments later, she fell to the ground, the remnants of colour flooding from her eyes and her hair. As the last of Imogen Herondale's life left her, the dead boy rose. Only Jonathon Morgenstern hadn't been dead. He had been on the brink, needing nothing less than the soul of a Nephilim to thrust him back into the realm of the living.

Jonathon smoothed the collar of his shirt and cracked his back before striding out of the courtyard to follow the other Nephilim, knowing they would lead to Alec.


	21. Return

**Return**

From the darkness I hear a ticking noise, like a slow clock. It reminds me of a heartbeat, but I know it's not mine. It's far away. I can't feel my heart beating. It's strange how you don't notice the movement inside your body until it's gone. I feel hollowed out on the inside, like the life has fled completely from me, leaving nothing but a zombified husk.

My eyes are open, but I can't see anything. Shapes slowly come to me. It seems to take hours. It's probably minutes. Time has stopped making sense. Logic has flown. I'm dead. I'm gone.

It's windy.

I'm sitting up in a chair. It's hard and my body drapes over it horrendously. I can sense that I look wrong. My knees are bent towards each other, my chin rests brokenly on my collarbone. My hands, when I can finally see them, are bloodless. Everything in my body is stiff and sore - dead. I'm a thinking corpse. I watch, unable to move, as a jagged black skyline appears in the eternal dawn. This is a place I've been before in dreams, but now I'm here in real life. I can feel the rough sand whipping against my face, but it doesn't hurt. I'm past pain.

The wind carries the sound of chanting. Figures emerge from the shadows of the mountains. They seem taller than life, their arms and legs and torsos distended. I cast my gaze down. The rough stone throne I'm sitting in lies over a pentagram. Tendrils of power slide over my skin. They make it tingle and the feeling that I miss so much already trails in its wake.

_Alec. I'm dead, Alec. I'm sorry._

For a moment I'm forced to breathe in the ash and sand flying through the air. It burns like nothing I've ever felt before and then stops. I can't breathe anymore. I don't know whether I'm happy about that or not. The figures are drawing closer. They are men and women, beautiful and towering with intricate facial tattoos that become clearer the closer they get. When they reach the edge of the pentagram, they drop to their knees as one. Their eyes are completely black. Staring at them, I feel my own double vision returning.

In my mind's eye, the Warlock's have clawed hands and curled black horns, but that is where the demonic attributes end. They are beautiful, their faces shining with dull blue light. Magic dances in the air around them. My still heart aches for them, for the loss that rolls off of them in waves, and I can feel that their hearts ache for me as well. I can feel their minds murmuring my name. I can see their mouths move in tandem, casting a spell, pouring what little life they can back into my body.

Another aching breath. A single cold tear streams down my cheek. The terrible breathing increases. My heart gives a painful jerk and I moan. They aren't returning me to life. They're filling me with something. Something ancient and strong. I force my eyes upwards and watch as soot drifts down from the mountains, sparking blue.

"Sweet Prince."

I cast my gaze downwards. A young girl, face sweetly chubby, stands in front of the kneeling crowd. She has long, curled horns and claws, but her eyes are blue like Heaven. They remind me of Alec.

_God, Alec..._

"You are our Gateway. You are our hope. You, Magnus Bane, shall be the door through which our people shall travel. Freed from this hellish half-life so that we may slay the vampire hoards and reclaim our place on Earth."

My voice doesn't sound like my voice when I force out Alec's name. It's the sound of dead vocal chords. I breathe again. My chest is on fire, lungs filled with razor wire and steel wool. It hurts, Alec. It fucking burns.

"We created you in this very circle, Prince. Seventeen years ago Magnus Banus gave his very life so that you could live in the human world. And when your mortal blood was spilled for the last time at the hands of a vampire, the spell completed." The little girl is creepy. Her voice is stale and dusty. I doubt she is as young as she looks. "The dust of Magnus Banus returns. It fills you, passes through you. It gives your life to him. He shall open the Gateway once more. He shall set us free."

"Alec," I croak once more.

The little Warlock girl says no more. She drops to her knees and takes up the murmuring chant. The ash thickens. I can feel him inside of me. My Creator. My father. Magnus Banus moves my fingers. He rolls my head over to my other shoulder and closes my eyes one final time.

O-O-O

Alec watched Magnus fall from his perch in the tangle of wires crisscrossing the ceiling of the nest. He could almost feel the life rush from him, as though it was a physical being in its own right. As if whatever made Magnus himself had left the building, making the whole awful place that much darker without its presence. Alec screamed. Against all of his better instincts, the sound flew from his mouth and a hundred or so vampires looked upwards.

Camille shouted orders to catch him and vampires began scrambling up the walls, their fingers burying into the concrete. Alec scrambled to get his bow and arrow together. He began to shoot at anything moving, managing to kill three vampires without looking. Junkies flung themselves onto the blood and were trampled by other vampires trying to get to Alec. He swung from one cord to another, trying desperately to find a way out. There wasn't one.

Fuck, he was going to die.

It seemed less like a terrible occurrence and more like a distant fact. Alec chanced a glance down. Magnus had been rolled over by one of Camille's boots. His blank eyes seemed to pop out in Alec's mind. They were everything. He thought for a moment that he was going to cry, but nothing came. He was strangely... numb. He felt nothing.

Camille toed Magnus's face and stared up at Alec, a smirk on her face.

A spark went off in Alec's mind. It was strange. There was little build up to his anger. The shock just snapped abruptly. He wasn't sad. He was fucking furious in a way he'd never been before. Not with Sebastian. Not ever. It ate him up. It burned out his control. It blew sparks from the wires he held on to and knocked every vampire scuttling its way to execute him back into the walls, smashing several heads in.

He could have set fire to water. He could have painted the walls red with blood. He could have beaten Camille to death with her own shoe.

But he didn't have to. As Alec lifted himself up into the wires, his eyes burning with the fury of an angel, reinforcements arrived. They poured in through the tunnel, wearing their black Nephilim gear. A score of arrows tore the rest of the vampires down from the ceiling and the real battle began as Nephilim and vampire clashed. Alec heard Isabelle and Jace calling for him. They were echoes in his ears. He had a prize in his sights.

Camille wasn't paying attention to him. She was screaming orders, retreating towards Raphael's torture chambers with her guards. Alec flitted through the wires until he reached the wall and dug his scythe deep into the concrete. It sliced clean through the thick material as he slid to the ground. He left it there and went chasing after Camille and her guards, his anger rippling through the battling crowds.

O-O-O

Isabelle spotted Alec for the barest moment, swinging through the wires so high above her head that she felt her heart pang. What if he fell? And then she spotted the vampires scouring through the wires with him and her priorities sorted themselves out pretty quick. The arrows had flown at her command. He had fallen from her sights when the fighting started, spurred into a frenzy by the waves of her brother's fury.

Something serious must have happened to force him into a mood like the one swelling through the battle. She could feel his hatred in every Nephilim she fought beside and every vampire she slayed. Jace came up beside her, driving stakes left and right. He was streaked with blood and dirt, his hair matted. She saw him mouth Alec's name, but the sound was torn away in the battle.

Isabelle nodded towards the ceiling and Jace was gone again.

She had to get to her brother. She had to protect him. She had to make it up to him. She had to...

The crowd broke apart for just a moment and Isabelle saw the yellowed throne. A figure lay twisted at the base, turned onto its back. With her angelic vision, she could see that it was Magnus. With her pounding heart, she could tell he was dead. It all snapped into place. Isabelle whipped through the crowd, splattering blood and guts every which way. It was only by chance that she made it to the throne. No one noticed when she broke through the lines and ran off to the side, to the abandoned body of the warlock.

He looked different than she remembered, and not just because he was dead. She kneeled beside him. His yellow-green eyes were looking off into another world, his paling lips opened slightly. There was a dagger buried to the hilt in his chest. The handle was thick, trapping the blood in the wound. Isabelle fought off tears as she grabbed the handle and tugged it out, hoping that if Alec was still alive when it all ended, he wouldn't have to see someone who meant so much to him with a knife through their heart.

As soon as the dagger was out, the blood came. It seemed to defy gravity. Instead of settling, it poured from the wound in rivulets. Isabelle covered her mouth with her hand. She had seen death before, but nothing so human. Magnus wasn't a bad guy - he was just a guy who was caught in the crossfire. The blood slid down his wrists and for the first time Isabelle truly realized something was strange. His blood wasn't following gravity at all. It was moving on its own.

She held her breath as it dripped steadily onto the concrete floor and slid outwards. In mere seconds, a circle had formed, Magnus lying in the center of a complex pentagram. Isabelle slid backwards, gasping. She had to get Alec. She had to get her mom or her dad or Jace or someone else to help.

But before she could do anything, a pair of hands grabbed her by the back of her shirt and hauled her onto her feet. The vampire knotted its hands in her hair and tugged, exposing her throat. She grabbed for her whip, but someone beat her to the punch. The vampire screamed and Isabelle dropped to the floor. She flipped onto her back quickly and tore her whip out of her belt. There was no point, though. The vampire was threaded with thin blue streams of light, crisscrossing all over his body. It gave a final shriek and was torn to chunks that flew in every direction before they exploded into sludge.

When the vampire's remains had settled to the ground, Isabelle saw Magnus again. He was sitting up, his eyes black, clawed fingers dancing with blue light. Two tall, curved horns erupted from his towering black pile of hair. But his face was different. The constant look of sarcastic appreciation was gone, replaced with an ancient blank stare. Magnus got to his feet slowly, calmly taking in the room. His gaze fell on Isabelle for a moment and his eyes flickered. They became green and yellow again and his mouth opened. The black swelled back into his eyes and he closed his mouth again.

Something had taken him over. Isabelle was certain of it.

Magnus lifted his hands and began tracing patterns of blue light in the air. A circle hovered before him, almost identical to the one on the floor. Isabelle watched with her hands covering her mouth as Magnus finished his drawing. His eyes flickered again and he looked confused. His whole body shook with a thick gasp, as if he had just begun breathing again. Their eyes met and he mouthed her brother's name.

Isabelle scrambled onto her feet, but she didn't know what to do after that. She didn't want to chance entering the circle - not when it was humming with energy. She looked around. Few vampires and Nephilim had taken notice of Magnus's rising. There was no one to help. Even if someone was paying attention, they would have no better idea of what was going on than she did.

Alec. Why couldn't he be there to see Magnus was alive?

Only he wasn't. Isabelle figured that out as Magnus stepped through the hovering circle, his eyes black once again. The life fled from his body and he fell backwards. A different man continued his stride through the circle, followed by a young girl and an old woman. The man had the same old, blank stare. Isabelle had seen him before in books, but never had she imagined he would be so intimidating in person. Magnus Banus, the most powerful Warlock there ever was, looked like an older, angrier version of Magnus. He and the beings following him from the circle were all at least eight feet tall, dressed in dirty robes from centuries earlier. They all had intricate facial tattoos and features so beautiful they were almost surreal.

All of the Warlocks marched automatically to battle, save for the young girl. Isabelle watched, frozen in shock, as the girl turned and knelt beside Magnus, brushing his hair from his face before brushing her hand over his eyes, laying him to rest.


	22. Lonely

**Lonely**

Alec didn't want to admit how tired he was to himself. The explosion of his power began fading as he ran through the confusing tangle of trashed offices and blocked off exits. It was nearly pitch dark in the maze of Raphael's quarters. Everything smelled sickeningly of rot and blood, mold and spoiled meat. Alec passed the room he'd been kept in, the room awash in blue TV light. It was empty, but his shirt was on the floor. He grabbed it, dusted it off, and pulled it over his head.

Something skittered behind him.

Alec turned to face it so quickly that he managed to catch the figure off guard. A little girl flitted out into the hallway. For a moment Alec thought he was hallucinating. What the fuck was a child doing in a place like that? But then he remembered her eyes; big, empty, dead. His stomach lurched. What kind of sick bastard would drain a child? He stepped out into the hall again, gripping his blade tighter. A piece of ceiling tile crumpled and fell almost on top of him. He jumped out of the way just in time, choking against the spray of dust left in its wake.

When he was able to open his eyes again, the little girl was right in front of him. He took her face in all at once. Her mouth was stained, flesh dangling from between her teeth. Not a lot of zombies fed on human meat. Often they mindlessly went through the motions of eating and drinking and shuffling around. Only a child would feel the need to actually feed. The body would want to intake nutrients, though it was in a state of decay instead of growth. The eyes were the worst, stained with little pinpricks of blood. She had had blue eyes. Blonde hair. Her skin held a deathly pallor, but she had had freckles.

The little girl squealed and swiped a hand at him. Alec jumped backwards. He hit a wall, spine flattening. His blade made a sharp clang as it swung through the air and then a soft thud as it hit the zombie child's flesh. It tore clear through. There was a moment where they stared at each other before the top half of her body slid and she hit the ground. Alec stared at the mangled thing distantly, knowing that she had died a long time before he had arrived. As he pulled his weapon out of her head, he heard it - toenails scraping on concrete. Lots of toenails.

They had him surrounded. Little kids, all of them - dead as doornails and in different states of decay. There were at least twenty, all staring at him with wild, milky eyes spotted with blood. Alec had a moment of clarity. The zombie children were no accident. Raphael had put them there as security - unknowing guards. After all, who would fight a child?

Alec hunched his shoulders and snarled at the kids like a trapped dog before whipping his staff around. He caught one behind the ear and knocked it to the floor, head caved in completely. A quick battle ensued, Alec always with the upper hand. They were decaying, weak, though they somewhat made up for it with their hunger. He narrowly missed teeth and nails and pointy elbows. At the end of it, he stood in the center of a circle made up of dead bodies, only a shallow scratch on his cheek to show for it.

There was a fire burning in his chest, smoking out the hurt and the panic. But that didn't mean he wasn't hurting, and it certainly didn't mean he wasn't panicking.

_He's dead, he's dead, oh God, oh fuck. Why him? Why now? Why didn't I see this coming?_

"Alec!" Jace shouted. It snapped his attention back. His brother was standing in what little light remained in the maze of offices, covered in sweat and dust. He stared around, at the kids on the floor, and his face turned green. "_What did you do_?"

Alec blinked, took a breath, and tried to think. "They were zombies," he said. "We need to find Camille."

Jace opened his mouth, but whatever he was going to say was lost. Blood exploded on the wall beside his shoulder, faster than Alec could hear the gunshot. Jace grabbed his wounded arm and sucked in air between his teeth before stumbling backwards. He tripped on an upturned tile and sprawled out on the floor.

"Clumsy little Nephilim," Camille laughed thickly. It sounded like there was something bubbling in her throat. As she stepped into the light, Alec saw that her face and chest were stained with wet, sticky blood. Her fangs rested on her bottom lip like thick knitting needles, stained light pink with her dinner. "The zombies ate my guards," she frowned. "Well, half of them." Camille toed one of the dead children with her bare foot. "That's the trouble with human guards. They never last."

"_You_," Alec gritted through his teeth.

She tilted her head and batted her eyelashes. "What has your pretty little head so steamed? Is it Magnus?" Her lips curved upwards cruelly. "Was that whore yours? What a waste of a nice face, that one."

And suddenly Alec was running. It was stupid of him to charge so blindly. His senses were dulled with darkness and rage, his influence bubbling inside of him with no outlet. He couldn't make Camille feel any emotional pain, but she was going to feel it physically, that was for damn sure. Against everything he had ever learned, Alec leaped over the dead bodies, his weapon held high.

Camille didn't expect the attack. She turned to run the moment Alec's hooked blade swished out. It caught in the meat of her shoulder, curved around her collarbone. He yanked hard and dragged her downwards onto the floor. Camille screeched and tried to force her way up. Anger lit his skin on fire, made his arms ache - with no one conscious to feel his rage, it was doubling back, making him stronger. He planted one foot on Camille's other shoulder and stepped down until he heard a snap. She shrieked again, the sound raw and animal-like. She looked like a giant, ugly, unborn baby, all blood and tears. Her forehead wrinkled fiercely as he dug his blade in deeper.

"He's not a whore, you bitch," Alec hissed.

Through her screams, Camille managed to crack a smile. "Past tense. Magnus is dead... and there's _nothing_... you can do about it."

Alec froze, swallowing back something sour. He didn't want to think of Magnus, of him falling - of the look in his eyes, like there was nothing left inside. A cry built up from the pit of his hollowed out stomach, rocking through his body like vomit. He stomped Camille's face with the heel of his boot before releasing the blade from her shoulder and driving it into her heart.

Her shrieking laughter was cut short as her skin turned the colour of a bruised apple before exploding black all around the room, coating Alec in the acidic remains of her carcass. The force of the explosion blasted him backwards. He tried to keep balance, but it was impossible. He slipped across the tiles, cracking the brittle drywall his back hit.

Drained, Alec closed his eyes and fell into a deep, fitful sleep.

O-O-O

"They're searching for your brothers," Maryse assured Isabelle. "Please, just come with me."

The fighting had ended soon after the Warlocks had arrived, all of whom had disappeared once it was all said and done. Well, all except for their leader, who was kneeling beside Magnus, his face impassive.

Isabelle nodded at her mother, trying to hold back tears. No one could find Alec or Jace in the offices. Even with boulder-sized witchstones, they were unable to spot them in the rubble. All that was left to show they were actually there was a big black stain and a ring of dead children.

"I can't leave him," she finally sputtered. She pointed to Magnus's still form. From where she stood, it looked like he was sleeping. "He meant a lot to Alec."

Maryse's frown deepened, but she didn't say anything. "Someone needs to be at home with Max. Imogen isn't answering any of the phones. Please, Isabelle, I need you to watch him while I handle this."

Isabelle wiped at her forehead. She felt a thousand years old. "Can I just have a moment with him?"

Her mother lifted an eyebrow. "You knew that boy as well?"

She looked down at her boots. "Not really."

Maryse was silent for a moment. "We will hold him a funeral."

"Alright mom."

"Five minutes," she said. The hard soles of her boots began clicking away and Isabelle looked up.

People were being carried away on stretchers, human slaves carted off to hospitals. No one dared near Magnus Banus or his dead son. No one but Isabelle.

She knelt down on the other side of Magnus, across from the giant man, feeling ridiculous and miniscule. "My brother loved him a lot," she said.

It hung heavily in the air. Slowly, the older man met here eyes. They were the same green as the Magnus she had known, only they were cold and dry. There was something ancient and eternally bored inside of them. "Irrelevant. He was a tool - a key. I was merely admiring my craftsmanship."

And with that, Magnus Banus stood up and shattered into black dust that swirled up and out of the abandoned subway station, leaving Isabelle alone with the dead body of his son. After a shocked silence, Isabelle broke down and cried. Not for her lost brothers or those other Nephilim lost in battle, but for Magnus - the boy who never mattered.

There was a sudden crash, followed by a short yell. Isabelle watched Jace wobble out of a tunnel carved deep into the wall of the station. He was followed shortly by Alec, soaked in vampire blood and shivering. The pair stomped over the boards they had torn down, knocking away anyone who tried to help them. Alec couldn't run, but that didn't stop him.

When he collapsed beside Magnus, there was no hope in his eyes. He knew Magnus was gone. Isabelle felt the world stop turning. Alec took Magnus's hand in his, several thick tears streaking through the blood. Jace leaned on the throne close behind him, holding onto his shoulder. A Nephilim girl began tending to it, but he ignored her. No one went near Alec.

Below the bubble of conversation and moans of the injured, Isabelle heard Alec murmur, "No one deserves to be lonely."


	23. Wake

**Wake**

"God, like, it's so weird, you know? He just went missing and now he's dead."

"Yeah, I thought he died when he disappeared."

"I heard he was a hooker."

"Same. Still sad though."

Alec cleared his throat and the two girls hovering over Magnus's open casket both stared at him. They seemed startled by his fat lip and his ripe shiner, which was strange because half of the congregation was beaten to a pulp. The church was small, in Magnus's borough of Brooklyn. So these were his peers - no wonder he ran away. Neither were crying. They were just curious.

"Magnus wasn't a hooker," he half-lied. "He hunted vampires."

The girls eyes widened. "Whoa, seriously?"

Alec smiled without humor. He felt the cuts in his lips reopen. "Bravest hunter out there. Killed thousands of them."

The taller of the pair giggled and grabbed the edge of her dark green cardigan. "So... Are you a hunter? Because that sounds really... hot." She inched closer, licking her bottom lip.

He blinked a couple of times. Was she seriously flirting with him in front of Magnus's casket? Alec shot a painful glance at Magnus's body. If he could hear, he would definitely be smirking. Alec's heart panged painfully. "Would you mind showing some respect?" he snapped. "This is my boyfriend's funeral, not a cocktail party."

Boyfriend.

Oh God, he never got to use that word when Magnus was alive. The tears were starting again. He turned away from them, choosing to look at Magnus instead, in his cheap white suit with his hair flat and scrubbed raw. They couldn't afford anything really fancy. Alec was just glad that they hadn't thrown him in the burners with all the other Nephilim. Magnus wasn't dust and shadows - he was something more, something different. He deserved to be left the way he was.

"A lost boy," someone said softly beside him.

Alec started and turned to the young girl standing next to him. She was wearing a strange, billowing sort of dress that looked like it was made out of cheesecloth. Her face was almost cherubic, but she was tall - almost as tall as him - and more regal than gangly. Alec knew at once that she was a Warlock. He gritted his teeth. They killed him, raised him, and killed him again. That was Isabelle had said. Alec's hands balled into fists reflexively.

The girl held up her hands. "I mean you no offense," she said. "And I meant him no harm. This is an unfair world, and yet Magnus still seemed to get it so much worse than most."

"Say it all you want," Alec nearly growled. "It won't change what happened."

She smiled sadly, her eyes looking too old for her body. "Are you so sure?"

He sputtered something unintelligible as she walked away from the casket, straight down the aisle and out the back door. What had she meant by that? Was there a way to bring him back, or was she just messing around?

Hope burned brightly in his chest for a moment, before he turned back to the casket and realized that there could be no way. Death was irreversible. You could pull a puppet up on its strings, but that didn't make it alive. Magnus was gone and there was nothing to be done about it.

Through the whole sermon, Alec didn't say a word. There were no speeches, no eulogy. They prayed for his soul and then it was done.

Only the Nephilim went to the graveside. It wasn't rainy or even cloudy out. A bright, cold day with the sun shining down through the leaves. Alec tossed in a hand of dirt, biting his bottom lip to keep back a single dry sob. Jace put a hand in between his shoulder blades and kept it there. A moment of silence was had, all of those present bowing their heads. Alec took a shaky breath, feeling his family behind him like a saftey net, holding him back from throwing himself down into the earth.

And out of the silence, Jace murmured,

_"Do not stand at my grave and weep_  
><em>I am not there. I do not sleep.<em>  
><em>I am a thousand winds that blow.<em>  
><em>I am the diamond glints on snow.<em>  
><em>I am the sunlight on ripened grain.<em>  
><em>I am the gentle autumn rain.<em>  
><em>When you awaken in the morning's hush<em>  
><em>I am the swift uplifting rush<em>  
><em>Of quiet white doves in circled flight.<em>  
><em>I am the soft stars that shine at night.<em>  
><em>Do not stand at my grave and cry;<em>  
><em>I am not there, I did not die."<em>

He looked surprised that it had actually come out of his mouth, and while everyone stared at him, he muttered a confused apology to his brother. That was where Alec lost it. He couldn't hold back the tears any longer. They didn't come out in an explosion. It started softly, snowballing into something torrential on the ride back to the Institute. He buried his head in his hands first, and then on Isabelle's shoulder. Jace looked a bit ill, but he offered everything he could to Alec, despite the sweat beading on his forehead and the intense need to vomit and pass out.

For the rest of the night, Alec laid curled up in his old room at the Institute, surrounded by layers of dust and forgotten toys. The racket caused when they found Imogen's body didn't startle him. Neither did the assumption that Jonathon wasn't dead. He honestly couldn't find the strength to care. A fight would be good for him, he thought. It would take his mind off of the oppressive weight sitting on his chest.

At some point the sun went away and he fell asleep on a half soaked pillow, his head throbbing and his eyes puffy.

When he woke up, it was sudden. Alertness roared back into his body and he sat up, staring around his room. The moon was just as bright as the sun had been. Bright enough to show that his window was open and a long wisp of cheesecloth was floating in through it. Without so much as a second thought, Alec shoved on his suit jacket and climbed out the window. He made the two story drop easily enough, landing face to face with the young girl. She held her finger over her lips and then led the way out of the Institute's high walled garden and into the bustle of Manhattan.

They walked the entire way to Brooklyn and to the cemetery Alec had left his heart in in less than a half an hour. They crossed no bridges, but instead walked through alleyway after alleyway, down streets that Alec had never seen in parts of the city he wasn't sure existed. The gates pried themselves open for the pair. Alec followed the warlock silently to the uneven square of sod that marked the place his boyfriend laid. It was near the top of a hill. Alec had chosen it because you could see the lights of Manhattan from that spot. It seemed like something Magnus would have like.

He looked at the grave face of the girl. She was staring at the moon with her too big eyes, completely swallowed in black. As he watched, horns grew from her temples and her skin glowed softly with white light. She flicked her wrist and Alec heard the sod peel back. He watched as the dirt slid out of the grave into a pile beside the headstone that read 'Magnus Bane, 1992 - 2011'.

"I'm old," the girl said. "Old and tired. The worst part of purgatory isn't that you aren't alive - it's that you can never die. Any torture designed in hell cannot compare to that. Years have taken their toll, Alexander Lightwood." She sighed and turned away from the moon. "Magnus gave me the greatest gift in this world - the gift of death. I think I should give him something in return."

The casket moaned as it slid its way up through the earth, and then came to rest on the grass at Alec's feet. His heart was beating so fast as the lid opened. He expected to see a rotten corpse and was surprised to find Magnus looking much like he had that afternoon, though disturbingly white in the moonlight. He was still dead, and nothing the girl could say would make Alec believe that that could be reversed.

"Make sure he finds his way home," the girl said with a smile that was older than time itself. And then she added, "Oh, and apologize on my behalf to your brother. I think my poem made him ill."

And then she closed her eyes and sighed, her hair and gown lifting and changing, transforming into dust. The tips of her horns unraveled like ribbons, transforming. Her whole body lifted from the ground, becoming bone white sand that flew through the air and settled in the casket until Magnus's body was completely covered. All that was left to show she had been their was a single black clawed, engrained with white gold. Alec picked it up, his cheeks flushed. He had had many strange dreams, but this was one of the strangest.

He turned to the casket and slowly, gently, brushed the sand away from Magnus's face. He frowned deeply at it, his eyes pooling with tears again. Slowly, Magnus's eyelashes fluttered. The sand beneath his nose puffed away and his fingers twitched their way out of the sand. And then, suddenly, he surged out of the casket with a strangled cry, flailing his arms around wildly.

"HOLY FUCK!" he shouted. He looked around, stroking his hands frantically down his white suit lapels. He was breathing like he'd just run a marathon, sweat beading on his forehead. Magnus met Alec's tear-filled eyes and they simply stared at each other for a moment before Magnus blurted, "Dude, was I dead?"


	24. Last Words

_This is the last chapter of From the Cold. I had a lot of trouble ending it, but here it is. This whole story was a lot of fun to write. It was different than anything else I've ever done, and I think that's why it fought me so much. I'm glad I did it, though I think my next fic will be nothing like it. I'm thinking of doing something lighter, like Sandwich Boy - but not a sequel.  
><em>

**Last Words**

It isn't like waking up after a long, spontaneous nap, like I thought it would be. Instead it's like being hit by a truck or thrown into Arctic waters. All of the pain of breathing, of having a beating heart, of needing to move stiff muscles, comes rushing back. The heavenly planes I'd been on moments before shatter like carefully stained glass and fade into half remembered dreams.

Somehow, I can't be pissed.

Even though I was in a better place, the moment I see Alec's face, I know there's no other place better than where he is. My Alec—my sweet, sad Alec. When I come back from the dead and bolt up, breathe in the frozen air and feel the roughness of my sandy, tacky suit, he stares at me like I'm a dream. We're opposites in that sense. He feels like he's asleep—I've never felt more awake in my life.

"HOLY FUCK!" I shout, unable to keep the words back. It feels like I've fallen a thousand feet—like I've been ejected from a roller coaster going Mach 1000. Every nerve stands on edge, lungs trying to fill up with as much air as possible. Is this what it's like to be born? I calm my breathing, look around, feel myself to assure that this is really real. Finally I decide to just ask Alec. We meet eyes and he's crying. Oh God, no. Why do I always make him cry? It makes me want to cry, too, but instead I say, "Dude, was I dead?"

Alec grabs my face in between his palms and stares hard into my eyes. He puts his hands on my shoulders and then slides his fingers up into my collar. I swallow when he feels for a pulse. Tears start to fall freely when the jumping of my heart meets his fingertips. His breathing goes raged and he chokes on a sob. "Kiss me," he rasps. "Please."

I do what he says, feeling unbelievably sorry for upsetting him so badly. I don't ask how I died, which I can't remember for the life of me, or how I came back, but right now it doesn't matter at all. I cradle his face in my hands and our lips meet softly, slowly gaining pressure and urgency. He pulls away to say, "Get the fuck out of the casket before I have a nervous breakdown."

I climb out, legs unsteady, and roll onto the grass. Alec cages me in his arms, separates my legs and kneels in between them. Our mouths strike, tongues curling around each other. I kiss his puffy, tear stained eyes and try to apologize, but he won't listen to it. "It's over," he keeps saying. "It doesn't matter."

Our jackets get shrugged off and he puts his ear to my chest, listening to my heartbeat. I catch his lips again, roll so that I'm on top of him. "I thought they buried you in backless clothes," I finally say.

Alec feels my back, digging his fingers in a bit. He smirks. "That would definitely be convenient." And he punctuates this by grabbing my ass and pushing me hard against him.

I snort at him. "I know you missed me, but we're not fucking beside my grave."

I watch his pupils eat up all the blue and his cheeks flush, high and red. He grabs me by the collar and pulls me down so that we're kissing again. Alec wriggles beneath me, his knobby knees digging into my hips as he tries to get us closer and closer. Cold air hits my torso when he rips through the buttons of my shirt and runs his hands up and down my chest. He wraps his hands around my shoulders and then slides them down my back, like he needs to feel every inch of me. We pull apart for air and I feel like my lips are bruising.

"Not here," I breathe.

"I never thought I'd hear your voice again," Alec admits, and I can tell it hurts him to say it out loud. "Can you fall in love with someone in a week?"

I lick my bottom lip. The "L" Word - those four big, scary letters. Alec's eyes go inhumanly big when he realizes what he's said. His face falls when I shake my head. "I think that when you love someone, you know all of their flaws. What we are..." I trail off, suddenly wishing I'd kept my mouth shut. Alec looks like I've thrown his ice cream on the ground and pissed on it. "No, no, I'm getting my words all fucked up. We went through some crazy stuff together," I say quickly, making him meet me in the eyes. "We bonded super intensely. I don't think that's love. But I think we can fall in love. I think we can fall in love very easily."

A smile stretches across his lips as he strokes the side of my face. "Let's go back to the Institute," Alec says. "I have a whole wing to myself. No one will hear you scream."

"The Institute? Weren't you exiled?"

Alec shakes his head. "There's a trial pending to have it completely removed. Besides, Sebastian is still – " He stops talking, his eyes wider than dinner plates. "_We have to go_."

"What?"

Alec pushes me off of him and grabs our jackets. He helps me to my feet and I only wobble a bit – pretty good for being rotting tissue a couple of minutes earlier. While he scrambles around looking for "a claw thing" on the ground, I look around. From where I stand, you can see the lights of Manhattan. It's definitely a pretty spot to rest. I stretch my arms, listening to my joints pop.

Something black streaks through my periphery and suddenly I'm back on the ground again, my tailbone hurting like a motherfucker. Alec shouts my name, terrified that I've died again, but I'm fine—pissed at whatever mowed me over, but fine. A boy rises from a crouch in the clear moonlight in front of me. He has quick eyes like a rat and a smirk like he's done something remarkably foul to me. I look down and see a blade sticking out of my chest.

"Oh, for fuck sakes!" I sigh heavily and grab the hilt of the blade. "I am so fucking sick of being stabbed," I say as I pull it out of my chest. The blade is covered with red sand. The same sand dribbles out of the wound in my chest that's slowly sealing itself up. It hurts and the amount of magic it's taking to heal myself before I'm dead meat again is exhausting.

The rat eyed boy doesn't look so smug anymore. He turns to Alec, who is breathing so hard his whole body is shuddering. The rage hits me right in the pit of my stomach. Jonathon looks confused for a moment. I can almost hear him recalculating his actions. Alec takes the knife from my hands and throws it before Jonathon even begins running. It strikes him in the shoulder and he goes down like a ton of bricks. I watch Alec rocket onto his back.

"Enough of you," Alec hisses.

Jonathon sputters something, but it's too late. Alec grabs the knives hilt, pulls it out with a slow twist, and then reburies it deep in his back. I hear the blade scrape ribs and the deep gurgling in the back of Jonathon's throat, but Alec is making me too angry to care. Sympathy is dead, just like Jonathon. He's snuffed out, not even given enough time to make a bitter speech about the cruelness of this world. No last words - only last thoughts. The wind rustles through the trees, but other than that there is no sound. I don't dare breathe, for fear of something I can't name. Am I afraid Alec will lose control? Am I afraid of him hurting me? It feels ridiculous, though. Alec is the last person for me to fear.

He's still crouched over Jonathon's dead body. It all happened so fast, I think we're both in shock. Slowly, he sinks fully onto his knees, and then skids backwards. I can't stop myself from sliding forward until his spine is pressed against my chest. We still don't say anything. I can't even begin to fathom what's going through his head. Alec takes my wrist and circles it with his fingers. I feel him take a deep breath and then he leans his head back.

Alec murmurs, "Magnus..."

"Everything's going to be alright," I say, and I mean it. "It's over. For good."

We drag Jonathon through the dying grass and then heft him into my casket. He looks restless - I can almost feel that he's not at peace. Alec pulls out the dagger, and I think we're going to close the lid, but he flips Jonathon so that he's face up, and plunges the blade into his heart before grabbing his hair and slitting his throat. I say nothing. I keep my mouth shut. I fight off the urge to stop him because I know that Alec needs to make sure he's dead. When you come face to face with your demons, you need to know you've defeated them on your own terms. We close the casket and I ease it down with what remains of my energy. Dirt, then a layer of fake grass and we're done.

Alec holds out his hand; I take it. We leave the graveyard together.

"A whole wing, huh?" I finally say.

He cocks his head at me, confused. I bite my bottom lip and screw up my eyebrows in response - trying to look coy or sexy or something. "No one can hear me scream?"

Outside the heat of the moment, Alec is Alec again. He tries to hide the fact that he's embarrassed by nestling his head on my shoulder. I feel his breath against the side of my throat and it makes my whole nervous system shudder. "Oh right," he says. "Actually, come to think of it, there are some guards watching out for Jonathon that might be... disturbed by your screaming."

"But that's half the fun! Think of the mental images we could give those poor Nephilim," I say, and then moan, "_Oh Alec, deeper! Get your whole hand in there_! _I've been a naughty, naughty maid_!"

Alec busts out with the craziest laughter I've ever heard, snorting like a wild boar, and I laugh along with him. It echoes through the cold autumn night makes everything seem so much lighter. It's like we're floating in a dream, leaving the gates of the cemetery and the nightmares of our pasts behind us.

And I know, deep down, that I really can love him - can and do and _will_. My knight, my chef, my resurrector and my friend...

My Alec.

**The End**


End file.
